NEP Telephone

NTA has recently allowed NEA, the monopoly Nepali electricity distributor, to provide internet and fixed telephony services in Nepal. Telecom sector NEA has established NEP Telecom Pvt. Ltd. as a subsidiary company, which has begun its service of providing internet facility at high speed only in a few places in Kathmandu. NEP Telecom is still in the pilot phase of its high-speed fiber optic-based internet service but the company is expecting to extend services to other regions in the future in the next few years. As NEA’s infrastructure extends to every corner of the country, internet and fixed telephony services from NEP Telecom can be made available for people all over the country. Apart from fiber internet, NEP Telecom envisions providing fixed telephony and cloud telephone services, among others. At first, NEP Telecom will provide high-speed broadband internet service to institutional clients, and then it plans to extend the service to household customers with reasonably good quality internet connections at much cheaper rates. NEP Telecom has come in as the third operator for fixed internet and telephony, which can help enhance competition in the market and provide more options that can be more open to Nepali consumers. NEP Telecom, as a government-owned company, has the potential to address one of the key challenges, namely the digital divide in rural areas.