During the period, Internet access through wireless, GPRS, ADSL increased significantly whereas the number of dial-up Internet users declined by around 40 percent.[break]
President of Internet Service Providers´ Association of Nepal (ISPAN) Binay Bohra said it is natural for older technologies to give way for latest technologies, especially when they can provide higher speed at cheaper rates. He said most Internet users are only browsing social networking sites or using email.
Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) statistics shows total Internet users in the country are 3.59 million while they were only 2.45 million a year ago. Out of this, wireless has more than doubled the number of its subscribers from 13,000 to 28,687 till October 2011. Broadlink that also offers WiFi services and has a customer base of around 18,000 is one of the most rapidly growing ISPs.
The number of GPRS users has also increased by nearly 50 percent during this time.
The number of GPRS users was 2.23 million till October 2010 and it reached 3.28 million by October 2011. Similarly, the customer base of ADSL users has reached around 78,000, recording a growth of almost 55 percent.
The statistics further suggests that Ncell is the leading ISP with a customer base of 2.11 million and NT has 1.16 million GPRS users. Last year, number of Ncell and NT GPRS users was 1.99 million and 234,171 respectively.
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