KATHMANDU: Bishal Thapa, 30, a resident of Maitidevi SMSed his friend Sandesh Rana, inviting him for the morning cuppa. Rana instead showed up in the evening. It had taken 11 odd hours for Rana to receive his friend's text. Such stories are common among Nepal Telecom's mobile service users.

Sangita Pahari, deputy manager at the Mobile Service Directorate, however, rubbishes such allegations. "The connectivity problem is the result of virus-infected numbers and mobile sets with overcrowded message box," she reasoned, advising NT mobile users to delete messages once read.

"I would like to request our valued customers to contact our Customer Care Service in case they encounter any service-related problems," said Pahari. Saying it was not fair to blame NT, Pahari said, "If the users are out of the network coverage area, they will be able to send or receive texts only after they get access to required networking," she said.

Pahari claimed that NT had upgraded the SMS software and server's capacity lately. "We have doubled the number of BTS towers in the last year alone," he said.