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Telecommunications in Nepal has been for a long time a monopoly market. NTC
was the only service provider for decades. While in the last two decades, a
number of players have entered the market, it still is a playground for a few. Out
of the five Telecom operators with licenses to operate Telecom services in the
country, only two (NTC , NCELL) are active in the country and therefore have
market monopoly, while the other license holders (Hello Nepal, Smart, UTL) have
very limited market share. The poor market regulation of the service providers
has hindered the capacity of the market to provide competitive quality service.
R&D in Nepal’s Telecom market is next to non-existent, and there is neither
investment nor interest in this area.
Looking Forward:
Telecom has been proving itself at the global stage as the catalyst for
development, and a very promising agent for creating environment for a
sustainable economy. Nepal should consider this scope of the Telecom sector
timely and gear towards integrating it in the mainstream development agenda
without delay. In order to strengthen Telecom in the country, there is a need to
revisit the existing legal frameworks, regulation and implementation dynamics,
the service providers and the market dynamics (including the existing operators
service delivery and quality and affordability of the available and perspective
services). Regional based policies and implementation strategies to address the
diverse geographical needs, and institutions and implementation stakeholders, is
a gap area that needs to be addressed. This ensures services are accessible to
the mass, according to their particular needs (consumers at the Bottom of the
Pyramid, Middle Income consumers, geographical considerations). Regional and
local based policies, programs and their implementation will benefit the diverse
categories.
The policy outlook of the country acknowledging the key role of Telecom in
development would be a cornerstone towards aligning all sectoral policy areas
with the Telecom sector. In addition, there is a need to pump in financial
investments into the sector in terms of expanding infrastructure and human
resource in the sector should be implemented with priority. Devising enabling
market regulations would encourage more business interests and investments in
the sector. While it is beneficial for the country in having a number of Operators
competing and in result creating better and diverse services and cheaper prices
for the consumers, it is also equally beneficial to have complementing resources
enrichment and sharing. The merger of the non-performing operators to give new
life to licensed operators could be an answer there. Policies supporting both of
the aforementioned threads will help. The recently launched Infrastructure
Sharing Policy is a welcome move, while many areas of policy gaps are areas
where enabling policies needs to be inducted.
Efforts should be initiated to bring Nepal’s Telecom at the global level. The global
best practices in Telecom related policies and implementation, and enhancing of
Nepal’s Telecom capability to cater Telecom services in Nepal at par with those
available at global level is where we should be aiming. And while putting this
ambition forward, the reality of the fact that Telecommunications is strongly
intertwined with other development areas for it to thrive (Energy for example), to
aim towards Telecommunication led sustainable development naturally implies a
holistic approach to its development