Pokharel said the ministry officials were holding discussions with experts in the field so as to adopt the new technology through the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. [break]
“As we have already met all telecommunication targets, we will soon issue and implement a new broadband policy,” Pokharel said at a discussion on telecommunication sector organized by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of legislature-parliament.
Minister Pokharel also said telecommunication services and internet would be easily available across the country once the optical fiber extension program concludes.
Despite having five players in the telecommunication sector, Pokharel said three of them, excluding Nepal Telecom and Spice Nepal, were weak and that there was no competition in the market.
He also said the government has no frequency field to provide to the new players and added that it would soon form a committee for the reallocation of frequency fields for telecom operators.
Speaking on the occasion, some lawmakers questioned the effectiveness of telecommunication service providers operating in rural areas.
“Though the government has licensed some private companies for rural areas, their services are worse than that of Nepal Telecom,” Pokharel added. He also informed that demands for NT´s basic communication services were decreasing due to aggressive expansion of CDMA and GSM lines by the state-owned telecom operator.
PAC has asked Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) to furnish details of royalty amount received from telecom operators and agreements reached with them.
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