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Kathmandu Saturday July 28, 2001 Shrawan 13, 2058.
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More riches pouring in IT sector
Post Report
KATHMANDU, July 27 - Going by the registration of information
technology (IT) related companies, it seems that people are slowly realizing the potential
of the industry and pouring in their money in the fast growing business.
Within a span of just over two years, over half a dozen very
small aperture terminal (VSAT) network providers are in the business and 23 VSAT users
have acquired licence from Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the regulatory body
of telecom services, by the end of last fiscal year, ending July 16.
This shows that people are increasingly becoming aware of the
advantages of the information and communication (ICT) technology. Especially the private
sector is making the use of the facilities compared to the government organizations. Of
the 23 VSAT users so far, 11 are private banks and there are some other private firms.
Rests of the users are the VSAT network providers themselves.
Internet service providers (ISPs) are taking the lead role in
ICT as there are 15 players in the market at present. People are being benefitted from the
growing number of ISPs as prices of internet and e-mail have plunged drastically due to
competition and the quality of service is also improving gradually.
Except for four internet and email service providers viz.
Mercantile Communications, Capital Online, Computerland Communications and World Link
Communications, all the rest ISPs came into operation over the past two years.
Similarly, sharp competition among paging companies has
resulted in low tariff of paging service, which has helped mostly the owe profile
employees of the private companies and small businessmen.
There are 6 fax mail companies registered with NTA, but all
of them are operating in the Capital alone. So is the case of ISPs. Except for a few major
ISPs rest of them are operating in the already overcrowded Capital.
The government about three years ago opened 12 different
telecom services to the private sector, but the private companies have not reached even in
the other major Cities of the country.
Internet/e-mail, audio text/voice mail, video text, fax mail,
VSAT network providers, VSAT network users, audio conferencing, pay phone, pre-paid
calling card, local data network, radio paging, trunk mobile radio (for specified cities)
and video conferencing were opened to the private sector about three years ago.
The government has also opened cellular mobile phone and
basic telephone to the private sector recently and two operators have been given Letter of
Intent (LoI) in the process of issuing them licence.
According to a latest data provided by NTA, the Authority has
issued one licence for basic phone, one for cellular mobile phone, 7 for VSAT network
providers, 23 for VSAT users, 8 for radio paging, 15 for ISPs, six for fax mail and one
for video conferencing by July 16, 2001.
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