Empowering the Journey of Digital Nepal Through Connectivity and Data

By William Zhang, CEO, Huawei Nepal

For the past 21 years, Huawei has been serving Nepal’s ICT industry. As a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, Huawei is committed to bringing digital to every person, home, and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. Sustained, heavy investment in R&D is one of the key factor that Huawei has been in leading position of technology. Huawei has connected over three billion of the world’s population in more than 170 countries, Nepal being one of them.

By joint effort with telecom operators in Nepal, Huawei brought 2G/3G/4G technology to Nepal and has made connectivity available across the country from Himalayas to Terai. With the introduction of 4G technology, Nepal has seen a massive increase in the use of internet over the past years with high quality and speed. This technology has made the country progressive not only for communication sector but also for other online activities such as ecommerce, online education, digital finance, online video streaming, online social networking and benefiting overall socio-economic sector.

Check out: Huawei 20 years Timeline in Nepal

Huawei’s Technology and Ecosystem

Besides building connectivity, Huawei`s ICT technology and ecosystem is helping organizations in different sectors from government to financial institution, airlines, Internet Service Provider, media etc. It has helped to speed up the progress of digital transformation by using ICT technology to improve their internal efficiency, and making their services more convenient, easy, and fast processing. In the consumer business, Huawei is one of the most favorite smartphone and smart device brand in Nepal market. Huawei smartphones are widely used in Nepal by people of all segments, making their lives more convenient.

Huawei’s Dedication

Huawei has always valued our corporate social responsibility in Nepal. We have managed to develop more than 10,000 ICT talents directly and indirectly from the past 21 years in Nepal. Many of the talents experienced in Huawei Nepal are now working in top telecom operators, government projects and different IT sectors of Nepal. Huawei Nepal has been an attractive organization to great talents, and became a gateway to international technology arena for aspiring technophiles.

The dedication of Huawei Nepal can be reflected from constant work and effort even during natural disasters such as the massive earthquake in 2015, flood and storm in the Terai area in 2017 and 2019. During the 2015 earthquake, Huawei worked really fast to fix the telecom communication system and helped in rescue operation. We also helped the telecom operators to build the wireless base station site in Everest Base Camp, which helped to connect the communication blind spot to the outside world completely. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Huawei’s team stayed with telecom operators to ensure the smooth operation of network.

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has irreversibly and indiscriminately impacted all of us and forever changed the world we live in. Strong ICT infrastructure such as 4G/5G mobile broad band network coverage, data center, cloud platform and others, will not only make digital method like telemedicine and online virus contact track tracing to fight the pandemic easier, but also enable the digital economy as the toll to build a platform for strong economy recovery.

Connectivity

Internet data consumption in Nepal has increased hugely day by day after the pandemic. Online activities have also increased during day time, considering that more and more people are getting used to the modality of work from home and study from home.

However, in some rural areas, the weak internet broadband coverage has limited the number of people to use online platform. Beside major cities like Kathmandu, Pokhara, Butwal andChitwan, most of the remote parts of Nepal are still not covered by broadband connectivity which is affecting peoples’ daily lives and economic activities.

Digital Nepal

Government has also suggested schools for digital education, but due to lack of connectivity in the rural areas, students are deprived of education for months. Nepal government also suggests “The idea of Digital Nepal is not only about providing internet services to the major cities but making it accessible to the rural areas as well.” Therefore, we all need to work together towards bringing broadband connectivity to all people, especially after the pandemic, so that everyone can benefit from the digital world and digital application such as e-commerce, online education, digital finance, online video streaming, and online social networking.

Growth of connectivity will have significant rise in the uses of data impacting vast majority of the population. However for the smooth and better performance of the connectivity, flow of data and demand of IT resources, there will be requirement of ICT infrastructure and Data Center. This will help to provide business opportunities and boost the digital economy market. From the city center to the rural areas, connectivity will change the graph of the data traffic. Definitely this will have the impact on the sharp rise of Data Center concept. With the increase in the connectivity and growth of data flow, there will be rise in the requirements of the Data Center along with other ICT setup. Building data centers in different parts of the country will help to connect securely and seamlessly.

We presume, with the connectivity growth over the country, many government and cooperate offices won’t have to dependent upon the city centers. Increase in connectivity will provide them privilege to build their offices overall country. And with the increase in both the government and private institutions in more ICT infrastructure, Data Center has to be built along. Similarly once the international bandwidth connectivity from neighbor countries of Nepal starts to increase, data will flow from this region will also increase. Hence, the requirement of the Data Center along with other infrastructure will be a major requirement. This will not only help to build the better ICT platform but also positively impact on the employment opportunities and also will contribute to the economy.

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Huawei’s contribution to Digital Nepal

As a responsible corporate organization in Nepal, Huawei is committed to contribute digital foundation to Nepal, including high quality, wide coverage and affordable broadband connectivity and advanced Data Center, with all telecom operators, ISPs, government and all ICT stakeholders in Nepal.

Government of Nepal has initiated the Digital Nepal framework with different sectors such as energy, tourism, finance, agriculture, health, education and urban development. In our opinion, digital foundation as broadband connectivity and Data Center is the most important foundation to make all those mentioned sector being digital possible. We consider the connectivity and Data Center as the root of a tree, to provide water and nutrition for the fruitful outcome of digitization in different sectors. More factors such as friendly ICT policy, advanced technology, good local service and ICT talents can be the enabler to make the big tree of digital Nepal grow healthier. We strongly believe that, with the joint effort of all ICT stakeholders in Nepal, we will make everyone in Nepal be benefited from the digital world, to fulfill the vision of Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepali.

Huawei Nepal is continuously working with its vision and mission of “Bring digital to Nepal, for a country Never Ending Peace And Love. In Nepal, for Nepal!

At last, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and hoping for a better and prosperous time ahead with a new hope.