NTC to introduce ISDN in near future
Expected to reduce pressure on phone distribution

By Ram Sharan Sedhai

KATHMANDU, Jan 3: Nepal Telecommunications Corporation (NTC), the state-run telecom monopoly, is going to introduce Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), a fairly new service to its customers in the near future.

ISDN is a technology that provides different services like voice mail, text, video and data through one single access to the network. As the voice thus transmitted through digital system, it protects telephone tapping and ensures higher privacy.

The NTC has almost finished preparations for introducing the new service in the major cities of the kingdom, says Ratna Kaji Tuladhar, Deputy General Manager of the NTC.

"We are planning to introduce the ISDN within a couple of months in most exchanges of the country. Necessary preparations are almost complete except for fixing new tariffs and purchasing complete equipment," he said.

He said that the tariff would be just nominally higher than the present tariff of the basic phone.

The introduction of the service is expected to ease the problem of those customers who own a single telephone line, but have to operate two different services as it allows the users to browsing the Internet or faxing documents, or making a phone call and storing data in a computer simultaneously.

The new service is cost effective and less complex as customers can use the same telephone line for two different purposes at the same time, he added.

Users have an option of either installing a digital telephone set or using a common telephone set. But those who use common telephone set users have to install Terminal Adapter (TA) to benefit from the new facility.

In order to introduce the new service, the NTC has already made its most of the telephone exchanges compatible with it. The new service is based on Basic Rate Access (BRA) technology, which has a capacity of transferring 144 kilobytes per second data at its optimum.

As the new service is capable of delivering many facilities at the same time, it is also expected to heavily reduce the number of people in the waiting list of NTC.

All that an aspirant customer has to do is to purchase a Network Terminator (NT); digital telephone set (optional), computer interface card and a TA (optional). The NT receives the incoming line of telephone and distributes it in four different lines, helping the customer to use four different services, two of them at the same time.

As the service is entirely new, the required equipment is not found in the local market, the Corporation is going to make available the equipment in the introductory phase, said the Deputy General Manager.

If used only for telephonic purposes, the service allows the users to have up to eight separate phone numbers, of which two can be used for different services simultaneously.

Along with the introduction of the customer-friendly new service, the Corporation is going to launch video conferencing service. The NTC has made test video conferencing which has proved that the existing system is capable of holding both national and international video conferencing.

Malinowski meets NCC officials

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Jan 3:Ambassador of the United States to the Kingdom of Nepal Michael Malinowski today met officials of the Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) and discussed issues of mutual concern.

According to a press release, Ambassador Malinowski said that the American government has taken the recent development initiatives in Nepal in a positive light.

He stressed upon the need to consolidating bilateral trade between the two countries and to take necessary steps to aid in the development of Nepal, a landlocked and a least developed country, says the release.

President of the NCC, Rajesh Kazi Shrestha stressed upon the need to expand the American market for Nepali products.

Shrestha also said that steps must be initiated to develop flight links between Nepal and the United States to attract more American tourists into Nepal, concludes the release.