Growth in mobile service improves teledensity

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: Cheap and easier to connect compared to landlines and portability

of mobile telephony pushed overall growth of telephony in the country.

According to latest report of Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), Nepal has a teledensity — phones per 100 people — of about 62 per cent, largely due to the fast growth of mobile phone services which alone contributed about 54 per cent to the overall teledensity.

The number of mobile customers in the country has seen a growth from 14.22 million in mid-March to 14.50 million in mid-April.

Of the total, 13.65 million are Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) users, up from 13.37 million a month earlier, the telecom service regulator’s report stated. “The remaining 0.28 million consumers use code division multiple access (CDMA) service — popularly known as Sky Phone — of Nepal Telecom, it noted.

The private telephone service provider Ncell led the market with 7.70 million GSM subscribers, up from 7.46 million in mid-March, followed by a public limited company Nepal Telecom with a customer base of 5.95 million, up from 5.90 million a month earlier, the report stated. Earlier, Nepal Telecom was leading the market but with its aggressive expansion Ncell took over, the report showed.

Similarly, the number of CDMA users stood at 0.85 million from

8.48 million a month ago, it said, adding that the growth of fixed line telephones has, however, slowed down as the number of fixed telephony users in Nepal rose to 0.85 million in mid-April, from 0.84 million in mid-March.

“Of the total, 0.62 million are PSTN users and 0.22 million are Wireless Local Loop (WLL) users, the figures of the authority revealed, adding that Nepal Telecom’s Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) base increased to 6.23 million from 0.62 million in a month. “The subscriber base of STM Telecom has, however, remained stable at 5,181 and Smart Telecom has 598 PSTN subscribers.”

Nepal Telecom also has 0.14 million Wireless Local Loop (WLL) users while United Telecom Ltd (UTL) has 71,247 WLL subscribers until mid-April.

Nepal Satellite with 2,611 WLL subscribers has not been able to see any growth in a month.