The state-owned telecom major has held a series of discussions with China Telecom to establish optical fiber connection between the two operators as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed two years ago, said Anoopranjan Bhattarai, deputy managing director-planning division at NT. [break]
Optical fiber connection will link NT´s network with China Telecom´s network from from Tatopani and Rasuwa stations. NT has already developed necessary infrastructures at the Tatopani station but is yet to build infrastructures at Rasuwa station, according to Bhattarai.
NT is working out economic aspect of share and use of the optical fiber network. “We are discussing bandwidth, leasing period and financial aspect of the deal. We are constantly in touch with the Chinese telecom operator to discuss the related issues,” Surendra Thike, spokersperson of NT, told myrepublica.com on Sunday.
NT currently has optical fiber connection with India and it sends and receives data toward Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and other countries through India.
“If optical fiber connection with China is established, the cost of telecommunication services to and from other countries will significantly drop,” Bhattarai said.
He also added that China and India would reach to an understanding to connect their telecommunication networks through Nepal once the Nepal establishes optical fiber connection with the northern neighbor.
Thike said voice quality and data transfer speed will improve tremendously once the optical fiber connection is established as the connection will be based on next generation network (NGN) technology. “We will get alternative route to send and receive data through physical network of China Telecom, he added.
NT is currently establishing connections to Europe and America using satellite technology.
Amarnath Singh, managing director of Nepal Telecom, has already made public the state-owned telecom giant´s plan of expanding optical fiber network to all district headquarters.
NT already has east-west optical fiber connection. It plans to start its north-south optical fiber connection within the coming fiscal year. NT also plans to introduce WiFi services to different places across the country and introduce 3G mobile connections in Bhairahawa and Biratnagar by the coming fiscal year.
NT has provisioned Rs 32 billion as the budget for the current fiscal year and Rs 12 billion of it has been allocated for capital expenditure.
“The budget for the coming fiscal year more or less the same,” Bhattarai said.
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