Even while other state-owned enterprises are struggling just to remain afloat amid strife and violence, the Nepal Telecom (NT) has been booming following the deregulation of telecom sector in 2003-04. Thanks to GSM cellular mobile phone and wireless telephone (CDMA) technologies, the NT has been able to reach the customers it could not get access to through the traditional PSTN land-line technology. As a result, Nepal’s teledensity, which stood at around 2 per 100 persons at 2003 end, has jumped to 6 per 100 as of 2006 end. At this rate, the NT is well on its track to beat the government’s target of 15 telephones for 100 people by 2014.

NT’s success should prompt the government to consider deregulating other sectors as well. By allowing the private sector to enter the field, the NT has had to streamline its bureaucracy and cut through red tape to thrive in the competitive market. And thrived it has by leaps and bounds. But its growth has largely been urban-centric. New tehnologies like CDMA and V-SAT have made it considerably easier to penetrate rural areas that remained out of bounds of the NT’s traditional PSTN land-line services. Hence the NT needs to invest in infrastructure development in these far-flung regions too. And unlike the private service providers who are chiefly concerned with making profit, the greater goal of the NT should be to improve the livelihoods of the people who have so far been removed from many of the benefits of the IT revolution.