Minister hints at bringing new cell phone player

KATHMANDU, July 5: Newly appointed Minister for Information and Communications Shankar Pokharel has warned that the government would be forced to bring in another player in the cell phone market if the existing telecom companies fail to enhance their service quality. [break]



Minister Pokharel´s comments come at a time when every quarter of the society is complaining about the inferior quality of services being provided by the cell phone service providers.



“It is the responsibility of the telecom company to provide the best quality of service to the consumers whether by upgrading the technology or hiring qualified human resources who know how to fix the problems,” the minister told an audience who had gathered at a program organized by Consumers´ Rights Protection Forum Nepal in Kathmandu on Sunday. “If they fail to come up with a solution, the government will have to resort to the option of bringing in another telecom company to enhance competition and give the quality of service that people desire.”



Under normal condition, the government cannot issue cell phone license to a new company unless a service provider completes five years of operation. And since Spice Nepal Private Limited (SNPL), the operator of Mero Mobile, hasn´t turned five yet, the government cannot breach this clause.



However, Pokharel´s comments indicated that the government could veto this provision and issue license to a new company to operate mobile phone services, if existing players fail to live up to people´s expectations.



Currently SNPL and Nepal Telecom are the only cell phone service providers in the country. According to a survey conducted by NTA in September 2007, only 8.52 percent of the calls made by using SNPL´s network encountered problems, while 66 percent of calls made from NT´s cell phones had encountered problems. However, many consumers say SNPL´s service quality has deteriorated since the survey was conducted, while NT claims to have improved the quality of services by “leaps and bounds.”



“NT´s quality of service had worsened during the time when the country was experiencing power outage of up to 20 hours per day as one-third of our base transceiver stations (BTSs) used to be down all the time in those times,” Bishwo Nath Goyal, managing director of NT, said. “But lately with significant reduction in loadshedding hours, our service quality has also improved.”



The consumers´ forum, however, blamed NTA for not being able to penalize telecom companies for providing inferior quality of service and said the regulatory body should work independently instead of kowtowing to what the service providers say

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