NTA seeks authority to carry out regular duties

KATHMANDU, AUG 20: 

Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has asked the Ministry of Information and Communications to delegate power to it to carry out regular annual programmes prepared by NTA. 

The authority, principally, cannot implement any programme in the absence of a chairman, said director at the authority Ananda Raj Khanal, adding that all the regulatory work of the authority has come to a standstill after the resignation of Bhesh Raj Kanel from the chairmanship of NTA effective from August 1.

NTA will resume its regular activities which are listed in its yearly programme after receiving consent from the ministry, he added. Among other programmes, Quality of Service (QoS) survey will be delayed because NTA hasn’t received consent from ministry, said Khanal. 

NTA, in January, had revealed all telecom service providers had failed in improving QoS. It had given a six-month time to improve QoS to all telecom service providers at that time.

NTA should carry out another survey to take action against service providers but the authority does not know whether a new chairman will be appointed or the ministry will give consent to carry out regular work, according to the authority. 

NTA has set five parameters — call setup success rate‚ service access delay rate‚ call completion rate‚ call quality rate‚ and call drop rate — to map the quality of service of telecom operators.

Ncell misses meet

A meeting called by Nepal Telecommunications Authority to discuss the dispute of call forward between Nepal Telecom and Ncell could not be held after officials from Ncell did not attend the meeting, according to spokesperson at NTA Kailash Prasad Neupane. Ncell had introduced a new service called My New Number in the beginning of August which allowed users to switch to a new mobile number without missing the calls coming to the old number. Nepal Telecom had stopped the call forward facilities to the mobile service of Ncell.

Source: THT