NTA has started necessary procedure to find out the number of active subscribers of Smart Telecom - a rural telecommunication service provider.[break]
This is the first time that the NTA is conducting a study to find out actual subscribers base of telecom service providers. Prior to this, NTA used to present data provided by telecom operators in its Management Information Systems (MIS) on monthly basis as its official statistics.
NTA decided to conduct study to find out actual number of subscriber of Smart Telecom after the operator demanding additional frequency to expand its operation. NTA has allocated 2.4 MHz frequency to Smart Telecom.
Arun Manandhar, deputy chief technical officer of Smart Telecom, said NTA had already started the study and other procedures were underway to decide on their demand for additional frequency.
Bhesh Raj Kandel, Chairman of NTA, said although the study was being conducted to ascertain actual subscribers base of Smart Telecom, it could be expanded to other operators as well if need be. “Telecom operators claim that all the users in the data forwarded by them are active ones. There are greater chances that only 80 percent of them are active users," Kandel said. He argued that subscribers not yielding revenue for the operator cannot be considered an active user.
An official at NTA told Republica that telecom operators were calculating subscribers on the basis of number of SIM cards sold. He said telecom operators have inactive users as many people are holding multiple SIM cards due to freebies offered by the operators.
NTA is using Visitor Location Register (VLR) and Home Location Register (HLR) as the bases to find out active subscribers base. HLR is a database of subscribers that includes customer profiles, used mobile network (such as GSM or CDMA network), account status and users´ location, among others. Similarly, VLR is a database used by the operators to temporarily hold profiles of roaming users.
NTA will monitor a subscriber for 5-6 days. Subscribers not making and receiving calls during the period are considered inactive user.
The latest MIS report shows that Smart Telecom has a total of 95,000 subscribers. According to this report, the tele-density of the country has reached 41.5 percent and penetration of mobile users is 36.27 percent.
Related story
Mobile phone subscribers can now get credit of up to Rs 200
-1779250876.webp)
