Kathmandu, August 11

The dispute between Nepal Telecom (NT) and Ncell over interconnection issue has not been solved despite intervention by regulatory body. The row has been affecting customers of both the operators, making it hard to make calls from Ncell to NT and vice versa.

The two major firms have a combined subscriber base of 24.73 million, of the total 26.86 million voice telephony service subscription as of mid-March. The issue of interconnection came to light after the April 25 earthquake, following which NT had reduced domestic interconnection capacity for Ncell.

The telecom regulator — Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) — had even formed a three-member task force to look into the matter and recommend a solution. After holding two separate discussions with NT and Ncell, the task force had held a joint meeting on July 14 with officials of both firms. During the meeting, the companies had agreed to solve the issue through mutual understanding.

However, the companies are yet to do so.

As per NTA, Ncell is reported to have squeezed down international interconnection, making it difficult for NT to terminate international incoming calls in Ncell network. Similarly, NT reduced the capacity of the interconnection for domestic calls for Ncell.

“This row between the two firms has been affecting quality of service,” said Achyuta Nanda Mishra, assistant spokesperson for NTA.

Mishra said that even though they asked all the telecom companies to provide data on international and domestic interconnection, problems being faced and suggestions, no operator has bothered to do so.

In telecommunications, interconnection is a physical connection between two operators that allows a user from one network to make or receive a call from another operator’s network. Interconnection is also a major source of income for operators.

Normally, as the interconnection is related to core business, telecom companies themselves reach an agreement and establish interconnectivity. As per NTA rules, there should be less than one per cent congestion in point of interconnection (PoI) to enable any customer to communicate with any other customer seamlessly based on any-to-any principle. PoI is a point which demarcates the network of the telecom companies and is a point through which communication is transferred between the interconnecting networks.

The interconnection is not only related to big operators. Small operators, including Smart Telecom and United Telecom, too have complained of big operators not establishing interconnection and restricting easy access to their network by creating congestion.

NTA is trying to first sort out the issues of the big operators before looking into the cases of small companies.