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Kathmandu Monday January 14, 2002 Magh 01, 2058.
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Govt slashes frequency, renewal fees
Pvt sector welcomes the move
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 13 : The government has fixed and
reduced the licence and renewal fees for frequency bandwidth, ending the confusion and
controversy that shrouded the Ministry of Information and Communications. And the private
sector has welcomed the move.
The government making amendments to the Radio
Communications Act 2049, has fixed the licence fee for frequency with a bandwidth of 64
kilobytes per second (KBPS) at Rs 15,000 and a renewal fee of Rs 1,000 annually.
According to the new provision, every
additional 64 KBPS of bandwidth would be charged additional Rs 1,000 now onwards. The
changes in the existing law were made after publishing a notice on the gazette on December
24, 2001.
Prabhakar Adhikari, Joint Secretary at the
Ministry of Information and Communications said that the new provision would facilitate
the frequency bandwidth users as it has scaled down the licence and renewal fees and made
the structure very clear.
"The ministry has reduced the licence
and renewal fees for frequency users, which will greatly facilitate the users.
Furthermore, it has also made the provision clear," said Adhikari.
However, the provision will be applicable to
those operators, which have acquired such licence from the Nepal Telecommunications
Authority (NTA), subjected to approval by the High Level Radio Frequency Policy
Determination Committee, chaired by the Minister for Information and Communic-ations, he
added.
Some internet service providers (ISPs) and
very small aperture terminal (VSAT) users have been using various frequency bandwidth for
the past four or five years and have been paying the licence and annual charges on an ad
hoc basis.
Prior to this, the Act had a provision of
charging frequency licence and renewal fees for voice communication only. The present
amendment to the Act encompasses the frequency licence and renewal fees for data
communication as well.
Previously, the government used to charge Rs
30,000 for frequency licence fee and half of the amount as renewal fee for any frequency
users irrespective of the capacity of their bandwidth on an ad hoc basis.
The private sector has welcomed the move of
the government as a good step forward in the charging of fees to such licencees.
Allen Tuladhar, CEO of the Unlimited Numedia,
an ISP, says, "It is a straight forward and positive decision of the government. And
it is better to have a concrete law like this. It has slashed down charges
proportionally".
It will not only ease the payment of their
licence and renewal fees of the operators but also ease the assessment of their operation
cost, he added.
The confusion and controversy regarding the
charges of frequency and renewal fees had soured the relations between the ISPs and the
Ministry in the past. Almost every year both the parties fought for settling the rates.
Shishir Kumar Singh, Chief Administrative
Manager with the e-net, an another ISP, is also happy with the government’s decision
on the charges.
"Though late, the government has taken a
good step. The new provision would better the relationships between the Ministry and the
frequency licencees as it ends the bureaucratic hassles. The Ministry has done a good job.
It reduces the fees of the small ISPs," says Singh.
Such laws have to be in place in time. It is
especially necessary in the field of information technology (IT), in which new
technologies emerge almost every couple of months, he added.
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