It was almost 7pm, I was having a deep sleep.
Cellphone started to buzz.
“Are you ready? The cab is being called.”
(cleaning throat pretending that I was pretty aware & ready as well) “Yeah! is the authorization letter ready?”
“Yes! we are on the way, when the cab would be here, I will forward it via the driver, he’ll get back to you soon.”
Yes I know tonight I will be having a duty called “Night drive” – this is because the recently launched Idea 3G sites are gaining traffic day be day , as a result the day times are being considered as busy hours, with effectively less throughput (Data speed) . As per the criteria we are on terms to provide data reports to Idea with maximum HSDPA (Download) & HSUPA (upload) speeds which is one vital part of this SCFT project. Besides Latency check, MAC & APP throughputs, 64QAM modulation these tests were in my list. Some of my friends mocked- whats the point of work in night as the towers would not be visible. LOL! Network engineers dont need to seek for towers always- who would teach them now that Tower is just a medium where antennas are located, no technology related to towers. Though I never have done network testing or night activity in kolkata, but in Arunachal Pradesh it was our regular role to perform. so theres no point of hesitation.
Cab reached my place around 12 o clock & as per the plan the activity started within 30 minutes. Its needless to say the feedback is fair enough from my side- night drives are extremely helpful. Since last couple of days, in day times I was having poor throughput results, & technically no troubleshooting . So this night drive plan can be considered as a successful one. I was able to get maximum throughputs in drives, the benefits of road traffics,signals, empty roads also I would count as plus. It was total 5 sites in plan, among which sodepur, Ichapur, Dumdum nagerbazar, Howrah Mourigram were the areas.
The dark highways, extreme fogs -driver was splashing waters repeatedly after 10 minutes each. Hardly 10 meters could be seen & in highways it could be dangerous – You would never know a truck is just opposite of the dense fogs. I never experienced a ride of 15 minutes to reach Sodepur from Nagerbazar.
Finally it was 6 AM, driver was rather happy. He was afraid as he might get late more, but he did not expected it would be over till 6 o clock. When i signed the car duty sleep, the man was completely done- drowsy, tired with loads of bag. Some people started their morning walks & exercises. It was a new beginning to them, but who cares to a Telecom Engineer who probably finished his work when everyone about to wish “Good Morning!”