Nepal Telecom to add 10 million GSM lines

Tue, Jun 7, 2011 12:00 AM on Others, Others,
KATHMANDU, June 7:
As a part of preparing itself in the competitive telecommunication market, Nepal Telecom (NT) is doing groundwork to add 10 million new lines in its GSM network.

Total GSM user base in the country at present is little below 10 million as at March, 2011. Private operator Ncell is the leading GSM operator in the country with 4.78 million users. NT has 4.71 million subscribers.

An NT official said the operator was preparing to call tender for 10 million GSM lines at one go so as to overcome the problems in calling tender time and again.

Meanwhile, NT board has decided to install 400,000 lines for IP CDMA ´bridging project´. This will materialize NT´s plan of upgrading its CDMA network to an internet protocol (IP) network. Users can enjoy improved quality of voice along with data in IP CDMA network.

NT has already awarded tender to install 2 million IP CDMA lines to Chinese telecom solutions provider Huawei.

“As it will take 12-18 months for Huawei to install IP CDMA network, we´ve called tender for ´bridging project´ so that customers can get the service at the earliest,” the official added.

He further said that management was positive about awarding the tender to another Chinese vendor ZTE if it agrees to supply network in the rate agreed by Huawei.

“The bridging project shouldn´t take more than 4-5 months to start IP CDMA service,” he added.

NT has around 1.26 million CDMA subscribers.

Source: Republica