KATHMANDU, April 8: The number of telephone subscribers in the country topped 5.5 million by the end of the first eight months of 2008/09, up around 45 percent from last year. This has pushed up Nepal’s telecom penetration rate to 20.45 percent, meaning, out of 100 people at least 20 now enjoy telephone services. [break]
Looking back at 2002, when tele-density hovered at around 1.4 percent, Nepal can proudly say the telephone network has expanded at a tremendous rate. But when compared with other South Asian countries, Nepal still has ground to cover.
For instance, India, which has been adding 8 million new customers to its telephone network every month for the last two years, has a tele-density of 33.28 percent. Maldives has already attained 100 percent telephone penetration. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also ahead of Nepal. And even a closed country like Bhutan attained a tele-density of 20.6 percent back in 2007.
The primary reason behind Nepal’s laggard performance was the decade-long Maoist conflict. The fighting created disenchantment among telecom service providers, dampening their expansionary inclinations.
But during that time the country also moved towards a more liberalized telecom market, breaking the monopoly of Nepal Telecom. This paved the way for the entry of private telecom companies like United Telecom Limited (UTL) and Spice Nepal Private Limited (SNPL). It also gave consumers some cause to rejoice as services like wireless telephone were introduced and another door opened to mobile services. As competition revved up, tariff rates started coming down.
But sadly the benefits of cheaper call rates and advanced technologies have largely remained limited to the urban population.
Although SNPL, the operator of Mero Mobile, has a presence in 34 districts, its services are operational mostly in the cities, the vicinity of cities or places where demand is high. The case with UTL, which has a presence in 15 districts, is no different.
As private companies are profit motivated, it is natural for them to target areas that are more developed. But NT’s experience has been otherwise.
NT recently started mobile phone services using satellites in 12 remote village development committees in eastern, western and mid-western Nepal. “We were skeptical at first but demand is huge in those places,” Anup Ranjan Bhattarai, chief of NT’s satellite division said.
Following suit, SNPL recently announced its decision to penetrate areas where 90 percent of the population lives. The first privately-run cell phone company in Nepal is planning to reach populations in both urban and rural areas by the end of 2010.
In a country like Nepal with difficult terrain SNPL’s announcement is praiseworthy as mobile phones have proved effective in increasing the tele-density.
Nepal’s telephone penetration rate also shot up to 20.45 percent from less than 1.5 percent seven years ago on the back of easy availability of mobile phone lines. The country now has a total of 4.7 million mobile phone users and they make up almost 85 percent of telephone users in the country.
Said Kailash Neupane, spokesperson of Nepal Telecommunications Authority: “If Nepal wants to see 100 percent tele-density private companies must start expanding their network in rural areas.”
Standard Chartered donates Rs 3.7 million to Maiti Nepal
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