Nearly a thousand telephone lines in Thripunithura exchange are not working as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is said to be upgrading to the Next Generation Network (NGN).
Though many customers are affected, the BSNL customer care centre at Thripunithura is unable to attend to the complaints as the technical controls of the new system are operated from Hyderabad. According to officials of the customer care centre, they can only accept the complaints and pass them on to Hyderabad.
The work on the NGN has been going on for a month in the Thripunithura division, which has nearly 10,000 telephone connections. There are over 2,500 broadband connections too, making it a massive size for an exchange.
The switchover to the new system has been going on across the country in a phased manner over the last several years. The problems of earthing in the telephone connections are the only aspects that are actually being handled by the Thripunithura division. All other network related issues have to be sorted out from Hyderabad, said the officials.
A customer who visited the telephone exchange at Thripunithura told The Hindu that no one in the office was able to attend to his complaint.
His service requests for a telephone and accessing Wi-Fi facility have been pending for a month now.
Roy Mathew Manappallil, spokesperson of BSNL, said any specific issue relating to Thripunithura had not been reported.