Nepal Telecom undertakes biggest mobile expansion
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
KATHMANDU, July 10 (Xinhua): Nepal Telecom (NT) has embarked on its biggest project yet to increase its capacity by 3.5 million mobile phone lines within the next three years, The Kathmandu Post reported today.
Managing Director of the NT Sugat Ratna Kansakar revealed to the daily that Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited (ZTE), a global provider of telecom equipment based in Shenzhen, China, was awarded the contract.
According to the daily newspaper, ZTE will be completing the turnkey project at 54.5 million US dollars and is expected to start within three to four months.
Kansakar said that the project will extend through various parts of the country from east to west covering major urban and some rural areas.
"After the project is complete, all the problems we are facing now in connection will be solved," Kansakar was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
He said that the NT will construct relay towers across the highways so that there will be no dark spots there.
"Of the 3.5 million lines, one million is planned for distribution in Kathmandu Valley while the rest will be for other parts of the country," said Buddhi Acharya, manager of the NT's Mobile Services Directorate.
By the end of the current fiscal year in mid-July, the NT will have distributed 900,000 mobile lines.
Most of the new networks will be for GSM mobile phone services while around 5 per cent of them will be for the third generation ( 3G) cellular networks based on the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) protocol that the NT started some two months back.
ZTE is Nepal's largest supplier of telecom equipment having supplied systems for CDMA, GSM and GPRS network services.
ZTE's GSM cellular mobile system has been deployed in over 20 countries around the world, with over 40 million subscriber lines. The other company to bid for the project was Huawei, another large Chinese telecom equipment supplier, the newspaper said.
Managing Director of the NT Sugat Ratna Kansakar revealed to the daily that Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited (ZTE), a global provider of telecom equipment based in Shenzhen, China, was awarded the contract.
According to the daily newspaper, ZTE will be completing the turnkey project at 54.5 million US dollars and is expected to start within three to four months.
Kansakar said that the project will extend through various parts of the country from east to west covering major urban and some rural areas.
"After the project is complete, all the problems we are facing now in connection will be solved," Kansakar was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
He said that the NT will construct relay towers across the highways so that there will be no dark spots there.
"Of the 3.5 million lines, one million is planned for distribution in Kathmandu Valley while the rest will be for other parts of the country," said Buddhi Acharya, manager of the NT's Mobile Services Directorate.
By the end of the current fiscal year in mid-July, the NT will have distributed 900,000 mobile lines.
Most of the new networks will be for GSM mobile phone services while around 5 per cent of them will be for the third generation ( 3G) cellular networks based on the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) protocol that the NT started some two months back.
ZTE is Nepal's largest supplier of telecom equipment having supplied systems for CDMA, GSM and GPRS network services.
ZTE's GSM cellular mobile system has been deployed in over 20 countries around the world, with over 40 million subscriber lines. The other company to bid for the project was Huawei, another large Chinese telecom equipment supplier, the newspaper said.