NTA report puts Nepal to be Moving well on Data Services

The Himalayan Kingdom is moving well as far as intake of data services is concerned, Nepal Telecommunications Authority or (NTA) most recent figure shows that the penetration rate of data service had increased to 29.78 per cent by mid-January, 2014.

This translates towards 7.8 million people out of the total population of 26.49 million of the country to have subscribed to data service provided by telcos and internet service providers in Nepal.

According to the latest figures from NTA’s Management Information System (MIS) ISPs attracted a total of 976,445 new data users in the first half (mid-July to mid-Jan) of the current fiscal year.

The number of new subscribers this year is up by 27 per cent when compared to 763,231 users in the same period last fiscal. Service providers said that the number of data users was growing due to the increasing charm of its multiple use and cheaper tariff.

Of the total users of data service, 7.4 million are using GPRS, EDGE and 3G services under the wireless data service category and the remaining 0.4 million are using dial up, cable modem, ADSL, WiMax and CDMA network’s EVDO and CDMA 1X, according to the MIS report.

There are 22.47 million users of voice service, which include 22.11 million GSM and CDMA mobile users, according to NTA. After the number of mobile users grew significantly in the last five years, two major telecom companies — Nepal Telecom (NT) and Ncell — have been focusing on mobile broadband services like third generation (3G). By mid-January this year, users of NT and Ncell data service reached 3.9 and 3.7 million, respectively, according to NTA. Both the companies are also the licence holders of ISPs.

Today there are 99,265 internet users availing services from United Telecom Ltd, while over two dozen other ISPs, including Subisu Cable Net, Mercantile Communications, World Link Communications, Broadlink and Websurfer share 97,689 customers. These ISPs are providing optical fibre, wireless modem, dial-up and cable modem data services for their customer base in the country.

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