Kathmandu, September 14:

“The number you dialled is currently unavailable, please try again later; The number you have dialled is busy...,” are some of the immediate responses one gets when dialling a mobile telephone number provided by the state-owned Nepal Telecom Private Limited.

No matter how urgently you need to contact a person on a mobile phone, the task is at times very frustrating because it may take several minutes to make a connection.

Commoners and Members of Parliament alike are irked by the poor quality mobile phone service of the state-owned corporation.

Quoted here are what some lawmakers said on the phone service: Gokarna Bista: “When we try to contact a person, we don’t get the connection. When it is very urgent, the phone service irritates us because we have to keep on dialling the number several times. The telephone service needs to be improved and the authority concerned needs to do some serious thinking on the issue.

Kamala Pant: “Sometimes the phone service proves to be useless. It might be because

of low capacity and the users exceed the number of lines available. The service needs to be reformed.”

Homnath Dahal: “Quality is not up to the mark. Besides, the service charge is high as compared to the service. Quality needs improvement and the monopoly of the Nepal Telecom has to end.”

Parsuram Meghi Gurung: “The mobile service is horrible. It needs immediate reforms. Sometimes we feel that it is accustomed to lying or even fooling people with excuses.”