Addressing the program, newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Information and Communications Krishna Bahadur Mahara asked NTA to punish wrongdoing telecom operators and award those providing better service. He also suggested telecom operators to enhance quality of their service and expand their service in rural areas.[break]
“We have long been hearing complaints on poor service of telecom operators. I am hopeful that NTA will play an important role in improving the quality of telecommunication service,” he added.
NTA Chairman Bhesraj Kandel said telecommunication service will cover 100 percent of the total population within three years if tele-density continued to expand at the current rate (42.5 percent). The telecommunication service is being more ´data centric´ due to increasing use of internet service, he added.
Telecom sector is contributing Rs 35 billion (3.3 percent) to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Kandel informed that the telecom sector was providing direct employment to 10,000 and indirect employment to more than 50,000 people.
According to NTA, tele-density in the country at present is 31.85 percent with mobile penetration at 27.27 percent. Out of 8.9 million telecom service users in the country, Nepal Telecom has 5.46 million (including PSTN and CDMA) subscribers, followed by Ncell (2.94 million), United Telecom Ltd (460,800), Nepal Satellite (54,739) and STM (4,841 customers).
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