Total telecom subscriber rose by 3 lakhs in a month to 16.6 million lines, as per the data of Telecom regulator, Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA). The total telecom lines include PSTN (Landline), GSM, CDMA fixed and Mobile, Limited Mobility, and GMPCS (Communication by Satellite) lines.
Among six telecom licensee for all the technologies, Nepal Telecom and Ncell stand in the front-line both in head to head competition to cross the crore (10 M) line, now near to 8 Million lines.
The total subscriber base now stands at 16.6 million with an overall teledensity of 62.56 percent in June. Ncell, largest private GSM operator (from European Giant TeliaSonera Group) added the most around 1.8 lakh customers while state-owned operator Nepal Telecom added around 1 lakh customers in the month of June. Ncell’s subscriber growth is going strong among all the telecom companies in Nepal.
Other growing operators, Smart Telecom and Nepal Satellite saw thousands of additional subscribers to sum up the rest around 1 lakh customers. They are running limited mobility service (LMS) based on GSM.
Indian invest UTL (United Telecom) is almost steady with the same number of customers and no extension plan in the coming.
GSM focus
The rise in subscribers is mainly in GSM service. Telecom companies also focus all of their efforts on expanding their GSM mobile network coverage and also the subscriber base. They keep on adding new tower and transmission infrastructure which can be used further for other telecom technology later.
There is six telecom operator in the country with only one having a fixed-line phone. Out of all telecom companies, UTL is solely based on CDMA technology while Ntc also has CDMA service. STM now called CG Telecom is a rural telecom operator based on the VSAT link. Similarly, others have limited mobility GSM service or Wireless local loop (WLL).
To know in detail, please read about the total number of Telecom companies or service providers in Nepal.
