"Over the years, Nepal Telecom´s condition has deteriorated badly, while the other operator from the private sector (Ncell) is growing without due competition. This has created imbalance in the market, which can not be expected to bring benefits to consumers," said Digambar Jha, the newly appointed chairman of the NTA, said.[break]
Talking to Republica, Jha the introduction of another GSM operator from the private sector was critical, as it would help the country to do away with present imbalance and enhance competition in the market.
Jha said the authority was shortly awarding GSM license to one of the operators among the existing three rural telecom operators or limited mobility service (LMS) operator by issuing the Unified License to it.
“Instead of introducing a new player, we will award the license to one of the existing operators,” he said, hinting that Smart Telecom or UTL that have already applied for Unified License will get the authority´s approval soon.
Smart Telecom, a rural telecom operator, had applied for unified license about two weeks ago, while UTL, which has been operating mobile service through LMS license, had applied for it in October.
In the unified license regime, which the government endorsed in May 2012, telecom operators can operate multiple services -- including fixed line, GSM service and international long distance calls -- through a single license. To obtain that, the operator needs to pay a fee of Rs 357.50 million. Also the unified licensing condition requires it to pay Rs 20.13 billion as a license renewal fee after 10 years and every five years after that.
Jha said that has already instructed the concerned officials of the NTA to find out whether or not the operators that applied for unified license have fulfilled their existing licensing conditions.
Jha, whose appointment drew controversy because of his lack of experience in the telecom sector -- a criteria set for a person to be appointed as the NTA Chair, also blamed his predecessors for the present imbalance and lack of competition in the sector.
“All the past chairmen were former employees of the Nepal Telecom (NT). Hence, they were biased and looked the sector from the operators´ perspective only. This eventually prevented creation of level playing field amongst operators,” he stated.
While he vowed to break the trend that prevailed so far, Jha also said he has already started groundwork to utilize Rural Telecommunication Development Fund (RTDF) for expanding fiber optics network so that everyone could have access to broadband Internet service and none remain deprived from benefits of advancement in the field of telecommunications.
According to the officials, NTA presently has Rs 5.70 billion in the RTDF. The fund was built through contribution (equal to 2 percent of total annual revenue) of telecom operators and Internet service providers.
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