NT plans 60% penetration in four years

Nepal’s state-owned national fixed line and mobile operator Nepal Telecom (Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited, or NT) is mulling an ambitious network expansion program designed to raise overall teledensity in the country to 60 percent by 2014.

A report in the Republica online journal quotes NT deputy managing director Anoopranjan Bhattarai as saying the firm hopes to reach its goal by investing heavily in its GSM and next generation network (NGN) infrastructure. 

NT hopes to hit its target through an aggressive marketing and assurance of service quality campaign.

In real terms NT needs to add around 18 million new lines, including more than 5 million GSM connections. NT is also looking to install an Internet Protocol Code Division Multiple Access (IP CDMA) system, which will have capacity for 3 million subscribers, and is looking to implement an early launch of CDMA2000 1xEvDO technology boasting maximum transfer speeds of 3Mbps. Its existing wireless networks are limited to around 155kbps.