Kathmandu, October 2

The state-owned Nepal Telecom (NT) today expanded its 4G internet service across 32 districts covering all seven provinces.

Amid a programme held today, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli carried out a soft launch of the high-speed internet service of NT across districts beyond Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lalitpur and Pokhara by holding a video conference with the chief ministers of all seven provinces.

Launching the 4G service, Prime Minister Oli urged governments, public offices and the general public to take benefit from NT’s high-speed internet service. “Internet services and telecom firms like NT have a bigger role in digitalising the nation. Everyone should look into ways of best utilising internet services being offered,” said Oli.

Similarly, Gokul Prasad Baskota, minister for communications and information technology, said that NT’s 4G expansion is one of government’s biggest achievements and urged it to expand and enhance such internet services keeping general

public and their demands at the centre.

Dilli Adhikari, managing director of NT, said that though the company was comparatively late to expand the service, the 4G or Long Term Evolution (LTE) will cater to the high-speed internet demand of NT subscribers across 50

major cities.

Adhikari also informed that NT subscribers will have to switch to U-SIM to avail its 4G service and the company has already ensured the availability of U-SIM across places where the 4G service have been launched. Subscribers of old SIM cards can exchange the new U-SIM free of cost.

As per NT, over 6.5 million of its subscribers could benefit from the new 4G expansion.

NT was the first telecom company to introduce 4G in Nepal in January 2017.

However, it had been unable to expand the service outside Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara, as the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority launched a probe into the 4G equipment procurement process in February last year, suspecting financial irregularities, and other procedural and procurement hurdles.

NT had inked different pacts with China-based ZTE Corporation and CCSI of Hong Kong to develop core network and radio network required for the 4G expansion in the country.

Currently, NT has almost 800,000 4G subscribers in the Kathmandu valley and Pokhara. However, Ncell has over three million 4G subscribers, though the company launched the service months later.