Nepal - Telecom

Strong growth in Nepal’s mobile broadband market continues. Over the years, efforts to expand the telecom sector in Nepal have met with many challenges. Nepal’s mountainous topography has made it extremely difficult to develop its telecommunications infrastructure. Furthermore, Nepal had been struggling under an adverse economic situation caused largely by political instability.

Fixed broadband penetration in Nepal continues to increase slowly from a very small base. Penetration increased from 0.8% in 2012 to 0.9% in 2014 and 1.2% in 2016. Fixed broadband penetration is predicted to grow from 1.2 % in 2016 to reach at least 3.0% by 2021. Mobile broadband in Nepal continues to grow strongly from a relatively small base. Penetration has increased from 17% in 2014 to 21% in 2015 and 25% in 2016.

The Nepal Telecom Company, the state-owned incumbent operator, has been the major builder and operator of the national telecom network. For a long time it held a monopoly over all aspects of telecom in the country. With the opening up of the market, Nepal Telecom lost its monopoly on basic telecom services a little more than a decade ago with the licensing of United Telecom Ltd (UTL). It subsequently surrendered its monopoly on mobile services with the licensing of Spice Nepal Pvt Ltd, later known as Ncell, in 2004. Despite all the energy that has gone into the sector, there was still a significant disparity between the high coverage levels in the cities and the coverage available in the underdeveloped rural regions.

In May 2016 State-owned Nepal Telecom (NT) completed the deployment of a fibre link to the Chinese border. NT will then have a direct connection to data centres in Hong Kong, while there are also plans to develop a connection to Singapore.

The mobile market in Nepal continues to grow at a moderately strong rate in a relatively mature market, although growth began to taper off by 2015. Market penetration increased from 82% in 2014 to 97% 2015 and 100% in 2016. Moderate growth is predicted to continue over the next five years. The market is predicted to grow to reach over 110% by 2021.

Nepal Doorsanchar Company Ltd., popularly known as Nepal Telecom is state owned telecommunication service provider in Nepal with 91.49% of the government share. The company was a monopoly until 2003, when the first private sector operator UTL started providing basic telephony services. The central office of Nepal Telecom is located at Bhadrakali Plaza, Kathmandu. It has branches, exchanges and other offices in 184 locations within the country.

It is the sole provider of fixed line, ISDN and leased-line services in Nepal. Following the entry of Ncell into Nepal's telecommunications industry in 2005, it is no longer the only provider of GSM mobile service. With more than 5,400 employees, it is one of the largest corporations of Nepal. It has a total of 262 telephone exchanges in various parts of the country serving 603,291 PSTN lines, more than 5 million GSM cellular phones and more than a million CDMA phone line as of July 2011. According to recent data, there are about 10 million users of Nepal Telecom including all those of fixed landline, GSM mobile, CDMA and internet service. Nepal Telecom Launched 4G LTE Service on 1 January 2017. It is the first operator to provide 4G LTE service in Nepal on technology neutral frequency band of 1800 MHz as standard for 4G in Nepal.

There are six telecoms:

Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited (NDCL): NDCL is incumbent telecom operator. It has both land line as well as mobile telephony services. It has introduced GSM, CDMA, WCDMA and WiMAx technologies. It also has VSAT telephony service.

Ncell Pvt. Ltd (NPL) : NPL is a private telecom company. It has only mobile telephony service with GSM and WCDMA technologies.

United Telcom Limited (UTL): UTL is a private telecom company. It has fixed telephony service and Limited Mobile telephony service based CDMA technology.

Smart Telecom Pvt. Ltd. (STPL): STPL is a private telecom company. It has VSAT telephony service and mobile telephony services with GSM technology.

Nepal Satellite Telecom Pvt. Ltd. (NSTPL): NSTPL has VSAT telephony services and limited mobile services with GSM technology.

STM Telecom Sanchar Pvt. Ltd. (STSPL) having VSAT technology.

Internet Usage and Population Statistics:

Key developments:

• Fixed broadband penetration in Nepal continues to increase slowly from a very small base.
• Fixed broadband penetration is predicted to grow from 1.2 % in 2016 to reach at least 3.0% by 2021.
• Mobile broadband in Nepal continues to grow strongly from a relatively small base.
• The mobile market in Nepal continues to grow at a moderately strong rate in relatively mature market.
• Moderate mobile subscriber growth is predicted to continue over the next five years.
• NT is expected to launch 4G services using its existing 1800MHz spectrum holding before the end of 2016.
• In October 2016 Nepal Telecom (NT) become the first mobile operator to get the go-ahead to launch a 4G LTE service.