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Telecommunications in Nepal: Current State and Needs

Er. Somanta Raj Bhattarai

With the innovation of modern telecommunications, Telecom has been an


integral part of the development of countries, especially the Developed world
since the beginning of 20 th century. Telecom technology has rendered to easy
human communications needs exponentially. Telecom technologies is today an
integral sector of world, touching all sectors of the economy and every aspect of
human life. Telecom is also changing the way we do business and run
economies, and exhibiting prospects for sustainable development. While the
developed world is reaping fruits of the available and constantly evolving new
technologies in Telecom, the developing countries are catching up and
benefitting from it. This article endeavors to take a broad stock of the state of
Telecom sector in Nepal.

Current State of Telecommunications in the country:

Development of Telecom in Nepal is still at a nascent stage and the use of


Telecom in daily life and across sectors is a new phenomenon. While Nepal’s
Telecom sector has taken a fast pace of growth in the last few decades, and
especially in the last decade with the increased penetration of mobile and
internet across the country, it still lags far behind in terms of the global state of
Telecom development. At home, its benefits have not reached many households,
and where it has, has limited excess. The available Telecom services are mostly
centered on urban pockets of the country, leaving out the vast majority of the
rural and geographically far-flung and remote areas, and to the population of a
certain income bracket who can afford the services. The expansion of
infrastructure, application of different Telecom services, their cross-sectoral and
multi-dimentional application is severely limited to urban pockets and here itself it
is at a relatively initial stage as compared to the global application of the new
technologies. Quality of Service (QoS) and access to available new technologies
is still a major gap area. The technologies that are available and extensively
being used in the global market have a meager presence in the country, and has
limited penetration in terms of benefitting from their exponential potentials. The
existing infrastructure are inadequate to implement the new technologies in the
country and benefit from them, signifying the overall poor state of our existing
capacity to implement these new technologies in the country.

Telecom sector in Nepal is centralized. The policies and programs, which in


themselves are by far inadequate and largely non-reflective of the potential
expansion of Telecom encompassing across sectors, are constructed from a
centre, and centrally implemented. It has not been able to grasp the diverse
needs of the country (geographical diversity, remoteness, mass usage including
those at the Bottom of the Pyramid), neither has the sector been a serious
attraction for the government. Notwithstanding the mere superficial
acknowledgement of its potential and importance, the ignorance in policy-
formulating circles of the fact that Telecom is a bridging factor for all sectors of
development and infact can be a catalyzing tool for sustainable and inclusive
development aspirations of the country remains a challenge. Investment in
Telecomm sector is severely limited.

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.

Telecom as a catalyst of Nepal’s Development:

Telecom should not be viewed merely as an efficient mode of communications,


rather more as an important aspect of development. An inclusive approach to this
sector as a pivot to country’s sustainable development is a progressive way of
looking at the sector. Telecom should be viewed as a key development
stakeholder – the rich and exhaustive data that it generates is imperative for
development practitioners in their work, the opportunities that it promises in
accelerating sustainable development through its new technologies (virtual
network, mobi doctor, tele-medicine, traffic control, e-commerce, m-commerce,
etc), the role that it can play in sustainable development of other sectors
(industry, healthcare, agriculture, education, infrastructure) – all suggests
towards immense development opportunities that Telecom can facilitate.

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.

Investment in R&D in Telecom and encouragement to new TelTech Start-ups is


also need area. This mostly neglected field has the potential of creating
ingenious technologies supporting the specific Telecom and development needs
of the country.

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

The author is a Telecom Professional.


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