Network uptime
Also called: Uptime, Service availability · Topic: Infrastructure: Transport, Communications and Energy · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Network uptime is the share of time a mobile tower or network is actually working and giving service. It is also called service availability.
Uptime (%) = (Time the network is working ÷ Total time in the period) × 100
It matters because building a tower is not the same as giving service. A tower that is often down because of power cuts, poor repair or broken links still counts as "built", but people cannot make calls or use the internet. Uptime is the test of whether public money for telecom actually reached the user.
Example
The USOF mobile-tower project in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) areas set a benchmark of 98% uptime. A CAG report (2021) found that only about 19.56% of the 1,831 LWE sites met this benchmark in April–September 2017. A 30-day month has 720 hours, so 98% uptime allows only about 14 hours of downtime in that month.
Don't confuse with
- Commissioned sites / coverage: these count how many towers have been switched on or how many villages are covered. Uptime measures how well those towers keep working after they are switched on.
- Plant load factor (PLF): this measures how much a power plant actually produces compared with the most it could produce. Uptime only asks whether the service is working or not, not how much it produces.