Pokhara, October 22:

Nepal Telecom clients in western region are facing problem. “Not only connection problem but sometimes it also goes off in the middle of conversation,” clients complained.

‘Network is busy’, ‘The number you dialled could not be reached at the moment’, ‘Registration fail’, and ‘The number you dialled is switched off’ is what the clients hear repeatedly.

Chiranjibi Ghimire, an engineer at the Nepal Telecom office claimed that the problem is associated with prepaid mobile phones only and not with post-paid lines. He said the mobile lines are facing problem due to the technical snag. “The problem will be solved in a day or two,” he said.

However, demands for the NTC lines have continued to shot up despite all these problems. Ghanashyam Pandey, head of the Nepal Telecom Mobile Client Service Centre Pokhara said, “At least 70,000 prepaid SIM cards were distributed in Pokhara until now. But the number of post-paid SIM cards distributed is at 8,500 only. Around one lakh more clients are on queue for the mobile phone SIM cards.”

People queue up even at midnight whenever there is a notice for distribution of SIM cards. “The reason could be the benefit that they enjoy from NT mobile phone – no matter where they are; city or hill region, they can connect with their friends and families,” Ghimire said.

Though, Mero Mobile and UTL have also introduced telephone services based on wireless technology here, the cost difference has lured the consumers to the NT mobile phone lines.

In spite of the clients’ grievances, NT has again distributed SIM cards a few days ago, which has further worsened the technical problem in connection. Nepal Telecom has also

distributed Sky Phone based on CDMA technology from last Saturday.

Due to the increasing demand NT is distributing mo-re pre-paid lines in future.