Communications Minister asks NTA about quality status of telecom services

Kathmandu: Minister for Information and Communications, Dr Bikram Timilsina, has asked for information with the Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) regarding the quality of telecommunication service.

Sharing that complaints of customers about weak quality telephone and internet services have been increasing, Minister Dr Timilsina today enquired office-bearers of the Nepal Telecom Authority about the issues regarding the state of services, quality testing, regulation and service expansion.

During the discussion with Communications Secretary Rajendra Kumar Poudel, Chairperson of Nepal Telecom Authority Arjun Ghimire as well as different office-bearers of the ministry and Authority, he also directed the Authority office-bearers to submit regular report related to quality monitoring of telephone and internet services at the ministry.

Both regulatory body and service provider should be responsible to provide reliable, qualitative and smooth telecommunication services as expected by the citizens, stressed the Minister.

The Information Minister opined, “There is still complaints about poor access and quality of telecom services. It is must to improve it. There is no alternative to work in order to fulfill people’s aspirations.”

Expressing commitment to provide necessary support from the Ministry for regulatory capacity building of the Telecom Authority, he pointed out the need of effective regulation about service quality.

Minister Dr Timilsina directed the bodies concerned to ensure citizen’s rights to quality telephone and internet services, asking it to take stern action against those service providers not meeting criteria. He asked the Telecom Authority to conduct regular monitoring by making adequate arrangement of necessary mechanism and equipment for quality testing and provide its report to the ministry.

Minister Dr Timilsina emphasized that the regulatory body itself should be active to identify the state of services and take steps immediately for the reforms. He mentioned that the expansion of 4G service coverage, improvement of existing service quality, and preparation and regulatory processes for the implementation of 5G technology should be carried forward with a clear action plan.

In the meeting, officials from the Nepal Telecommunications Authority informed Communications Minister Dr Timilsina about the problems and challenges observed during the testing and monitoring of telecom service quality.

According to the NTA, there aren’t enough vehicles and ‘drive test’ equipment needed for quality testing. They also mentioned that the authority doesn’t have enough capacity and equipment to test the quality of telecom services, and that there have been problems in quality testing and monitoring before because of legal disputes during the equipment purchase process.

The NTA has admitted that even though it has issued standards for telecom service quality, it hasn’t been able to implement them effectively. The Authority had informed that according to the existing system, service providers themselves have to conduct a drive test and submit a quality-related report to it every three months.

The authority has also stated that service providers will be warned if the service quality is found to be low. The NTA said that even though service providers need to invest more in infrastructure to improve service quality, there hasn’t been enough investment.

Similarly, the NTA officials mentioned that if enough ‘frequency’ for telecommunications services can be provided, it would help improve service quality. They said that even though the demand for services is increasing, investment in infrastructure and network capacity hasn’t kept up, leading to quality issues in some areas.

NTA Chairman Arjun Ghimire stated that the authority regularly monitors and inspects the quality of telecom services across the country. He said that according to the powers given by law, necessary action will be taken against service providers that do not meet the minimum quality standards.

“We have previously warned the service providers about the poor quality of telephone service. Now, according to the law, we will take whatever action and impose fines that are possible,” said Chairman Ghimire.

He expressed a commitment to make the regular monitoring of telephone and internet service quality more effective.

The discussion was attended by the director of the NTA department of standardization, Min Prasad Aryal, the assistant director of the Service Quality Standardization Branch, Sugan Shakya, and others including Bibek Nath Mahaseth.

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