MoCIT Minister Directs Nepal Telecom to Initiate 5G Network Testing

During Nepal Telecom’s 17th Anniversary program, Minister for Communication and Information technology (MoCIT) Mr. Parbat Gurung has directed the company (Ntc) to initiate 5G network testing within this fiscal year.

Nepal Telecom organized an official program to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the government-owned organization turning in to a company. MoCIT Secretary and the Company’s BoD Chairman Mr. Hari Prasad Bashyal presided over the program held at their central office, Bhadrakali.

Speaking in the program, MoCIT Minister expressed that Nepal Telecom shall work on being trustworthy, reliable, and a leader among all the telcos in Nepal.

Do checkout: 5G Network explained with Services/Applications.

5G in existing spectrum??

Minister Gurung also directed the company to start testing the 5G network within this fiscal year after expanding the 4G network all over the country. Minister Gurung also recommended the company expand the 5G network using the existing frequency spectrum currently available with NT. That could mean that decision to be taken soon to grant technology neutral license to the incumbent telecom operators. Find the probable frequency bands for the 5G network in Nepal.

While the preparations for 5G are on with slow progress, there are two schools of thought on commercially launching the 5G network now. The first one is that we should focus on a 4G network expansion to all places of Nepal, rather than a 5G. Equally, there are people who have this notion of immediately rolling out 5G on a small scale (as per the demand) before making it nationwide. We recommend you to read details about the 5G network in Nepal. After reading the post, which Idea do you believe in, please comment below?

Infrastructure sharing

In a separate topic, he also suggested the telco establish an infrastructure developing company to speed up the new telecom project’s implementation and reduce the huge cost involved. This is quite related to the enabling of the long-awaited Infrastructure sharing in Nepal, which has again become the talk of the town lately. Before NTA was going to make it mandatory to share telecom infrastructures but it never realized.

Other suggestions from the Minister include enhancing the quality of service, 4G network roll-out, Strategic Management Partner, etc. Several days before, Minister had also directed Ntc to expand their mobile and internet service to mountainous areas.

In the program, Minister Gurung also inaugurated the launching of an AI-based Chatbot service in Ntc. At the same time, the company introduced the 4G Wireless Home broadband service for areas with no other internet options but 4G.