I would like to explain that the network coverage had nothing to do with Mr Ng not being able to use his mobile phone at Clark Quay on New Year's eve.

Each mobile phone set is linked to a base station, which is in turn connected by a set of telephone lines back to the mobile switch.

Congestion will occur during high usage periods such as New Year's eve. And if the base station serving Mr Ng's phone has only 200 telephone lines and he was the 201st user accessing the base station when he flipped open his mobile phone, then, he would not get connected to the switch.

His friends did not face the same problem because the telcos they subscribe to either have a smaller pool of mobile users in the vicinity, or a smaller pool of customers in the network.

Thomas Lee Zhi Zhi