Telecom quality

The recent directive issued by Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) to all telecom operators to take decisive steps for improving their services within the next six months is a welcome step. But given its abysmal incompetence in enforcing previous directives, it will not be wise to hope that NTA will be any more successful in translating this latest directive into action and bringing any remarkable change in the quality of telecom services in the near future.



Once you start talking about the low quality of telecom services in Nepal, the first name that pops up in one’s mind is Nepal Telecom (NT), though the other two service providers are also not free from blemish, according to the latest NTA survey. We feel there is no need for a big vocabulary to describe the irritatingly inferior quality of telecom services that NT has been extending, but we have no words to quantify the level of injustice the telecom giant has been inflicting on its loyal customers.



Popular outrage and frustration have been directed toward NT, but it has all fallen on deaf ears. Against this background, the recent in-depth survey in four major cities in Nepal that tagged NT as having the worst service among the three major operators, came as no surprise. According to the survey, Ncell and UTL, the two private operators, scored 0.6 out of 1, meaning that their service was satisfactory enough.



By contrast, NT scored just 0.2 out of 1, which clearly shows just how poor the overall quality of its service is. Likewise, the call success rate for NT was found to be 73.3 percent as against 91.8 percent for Ncell.



As a result of its chronic problems, NT with its four-decade history, has lately lost its number one position to relative newcomer Ncell, an European joint venture. Ncell has seen an astonishing expansion, enticing 7 million customers to its network, thanks to better services and lucrative schemes. But having said that, some of the genuine problems dogging NT should not be brushed aside. Yes, NT has been a victim of overstepping by Nepal’s constitutional anti-graft body and the parliamentary committees, which in some cases have even acted on the presumption of future irregularities.



As a result, NT has been unable to purchase many crucial technologies that it needs to upgrade services. We are all for anti-corruption measures but such action should curb corrupt officials without hindering the institutional capacity to deliver services.



As a strong advocate of democracy with accountability, this newspaper has high respect for such watchdog institutions but we must stress that even an almost entirely state-owned outfit like NT should be allowed to run as a business that offers a competitive service.

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