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Nepal |
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Nepal is a land locked country of South Asia, situated between China and India, with population of around 28.9 million. The country is divided in three main geographical regions: the Terai in the south, the central Hill region and the rugged Mountain region in the north. Being the host of world’s largest mountain ranges, tourism has been the main source of trade in Nepal. India remains the major trade partner and Hinduism is the major religion as 80% Nepalese follow Hinduism.
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| Country’s Telecommunication infrastructure has been suffering from the country’s topography and political instability. By early 2007, however, hope for Nepal’s transition to a more stable period was on the rise. Since then, there has been strong subscriber growth, especially in the mobile sector. |
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| The Nepal Telecom Company, the state-owned incumbent operator, has been the major builder and operator of the national telecom network. For a long time it held a monopoly in the country. Its lost its monopoly with the opening up of the market on basic telecom services in 2001 and then on mobile telephony services in 2004, with the licensing of United Telecom Ltd and Spice Nepal Pvt Ltd, respectively. |
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| The period from 2006 to 2008 saw notably strong subscriber growth. The total telephone penetration rate by early 2007 had reached at about 8%. This was substantially up from the figure twelve months earlier of 3.7% total telephone penetration. |
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| By 2007 Nepal Telecom Company with the help of its private operator rivals has been working for network expansion in the country. By end-2009 the total telephone penetration had in fact reached 30%; the 7.6 million mobile subscribers at the time comprised just over 90% of all telephone subscribers in the country. Fixed-line penetration had remained static at just under 3%. Despite all the effort, there remained a significant disparity between the high coverage levels in the cities and the coverage available in the underdeveloped rural regions. Progress on providing some minimum access had been good, however. |
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| Voip in Nepal is relatively new but has spread all over the country in no time. Due to continuous flow of tourists from the world, turnover for international inbound and outbound calls has been increasing and enriching for all service providers. Being a high dollar calling cost for nepal international call, illegal operators have been emerging for which all licensed operators have established their systems but still, however, a large portion of International Calls is being terminated by grey operators in Nepal. |
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| License issued by NTA (14 July 2011) |
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