Kathmandu, December 28

Nepal Telecom (NT) is gearing up to introduce pre-paid system for its Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) service, popularly known as landline phone service.

Prativa Baidhya, spokesperson for NT, informed that introducing pre-paid system for PSTN service aims at switching all services of the telecom to real-time-billing system.

“Currently, all other services, except PSTN of Nepal Telecom, follow the real-time-billing system, which is more efficient and transparent,” said Baidhya.

However, NT is yet undecided on the exact date to start the pre-paid system for PSTN customers.

Currently, PSTN service (landline phone) users of Nepal Telecom pay charges after consuming the service and NT has not fixed any credit limit for its landline phone customers. However, once NT enforces the pre-paid system for PSTN service, customers would be required to deposit certain amount before consuming the PSTN service and consumers would not be able to consume the service exceeding the credit limit.

However, Baidhya informed that it is up to customers themselves to determine the credit limit of their landline phones. Once a customer consumes the PSTN service as per the credit limit, the service will be disconnected automatically, as per Baidhya.

“Though we have decided to switch the PSTN service to real-time-billing system, it might take a bit of time to enforce it. In the first phase, we plan only to make our customers aware about the real-time-billing system and gradually enforce the system for all PSTN consumers,” said Baidhya.

As per NT statistics, there are almost 600,000 customers of PSTN service of the company. However, with the growing use of mobile phones, PSTN service (landline phones) has been gradually losing its popularity.