The statistics of Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) shows that the penetration of fixed line has gone down this year compared to last year. [break]
Overall teledensity has also reached to 41.5 percent by March from 27.7 percent last year. However, the impact of this growth is not reflected on the fixed line users. The penetration of fixed line in March 2011 is 2.95 percent which was 2.98 percent last year.
Out of six telecom operators in the country, five provide fixed line service. United Telecom Limited (UTL) provides wireless fixed line service whereas Smart Telecom, Nepal Satellite and STM Sanchar provide fixed line service in the form of PSTN. However, market share of these companies is negligible compared to that of Nepal Telecom (NT) which provides both wireline and wireless services to around 765,000 users out of the total 843,576 fixed line users.
Market leader in GSM service, Ncell is the only company which doesn´t offer fixed line service.
Spokesperson for NT Surendra Prasad Thike said that among various reasons the tough competition in GSM service was one of the major reasons for decreasing penetration rate. He, however, emphasized that the number of fixed line hadn´t gone down but only the penetration was decreasing.
“It´s true that there is no attraction amongst customers of PSTN compared to GSM service and our focus is also more on GSM service,” he added. He added that the investment in fixed line was large but returns comparatively less. He said, “Expansion and distribution of fixed line is not as easy as GSM service.”
The use of PSTN was popular with ADSL internet users for quite sometime but after the availability of broadband through wireless technology and optical fiber, the service lost its appeal.
Kailash Prasad Neupane, spokesperson of Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) echoed the opinion of Thike stressing that wireless technology was cheaper and network could be established at low cost. “Besides, telecom operators have been focusing more on GSM because of the competition,” he added.
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