Monday, November 26, 2012

Wireless?

How many mobile phone towers does Chennai city have? Surely somebody must be keeping an exact count, but the closest estimate seems to be "around 5,000". Apparently, their number is unregulated, probably because it doesn't involve digging up roads or "pulling cables". 

The statuette at the corner of Ayodha Mandapam's frontage shows a different form of wireless communication than provided by the tower in the background. The cables in front of it are of course universal to Chennai's streets.

From September, there has been a spurt in the number of mobile phone towers - thanks to the DoT's order to reduce the radiation from each tower to a tenth of what it used to be. Has that helped in getting calls through? Or do we rely on having to trumpet our message across?