KATHMANDU, JULY 8

Internet usage in the country has soared by 35 per cent during the lockdown period.

According to Nepal Network Operators Group (np- NOG), earlier 1,486 GB per second internet was being consumed while after the lockdown per second internet consumption has reached 1,971 GB in the country.

Facebook and search engine of Google have highly consumed internet traffic during the lockdown.

Speaking during an interaction webinar under the title ‘How Internet Works in Nepal’ organised by Tech Journos Forum (TJF) Nepal on Tuesday, Samit Jana Thing, president of npNOG, informed the aforementioned details.

As per him, while surge in usage of TikTok application had contributed to increase in internet traffic at the international level, Facebook and Google search topped the list in the domestic market.

“While Google constituted 51 per cent of internet traffic, 31 per cent was consumed by Facebook users in the country,” he said, adding that the usage of Netflix increased by 157 per cent during the lockdown period, although the Netflix covers only one per cent of internet traffic consumption.

As per him internet consumption increases by up to 23 per cent every year during normal times. However, due to the lockdown, internet usage has increased significantly.

“During the lockdown people have become free and mostly they spent their time on Netflix, Facebook, online gaming and on TikTok for entertainment,” he added.

Although the internet usage in the country has increased and mobile data usage went up during the lockdown period, Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) has stated that fixed internet (Wi-Fi) users are comparatively high.

“During the lockdown, most people have been forced to stay home and they used their personal Wi-Fi for internet. As per our report, only 11 per cent of consumers are using mobile data or wireless services for internet, while the remaining 89 per cent of consumers are using fixed internet,” said, NTA Director Bijay Kumar Roy.

Of the mobile data consumers, 3G users are comparatively higher than 4G users.

As per NTA, currently around 10 million consumers use 3G for mobile data, while four million use 4G.

He further said that the internet usage fluctuates during normal times, however, in the first 10 days of lockdown internet usage increased drastically and has remained constant since.

During the lockdown period, we have found that the internet consumption peaks between 8:00pm and 10:00pm, he added.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 9, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.