The highlights of the annual budget are new projects including Customer Contact Centre (CCC), Fibre to the Home and Unified Communication System (UCS) and optical fibre extension programme. A high-level NT official said that the budget might go beyond Rs 70 billion due to increased expenses and payment to vendors of major projects, the 10 million GSM mobile lines, convergent billing and 2 million IP CDMA lines.
“The budget for the next fiscal year is almost complete,” said NT spokesperson Guna Kesari Pradhan. Pradhan added that the company had included new projects focusing on better customer service, high speed data and social networking sites, among others.
NT had long been planning to operate a Nepali social networking site under its UCS project in a bid to help reduce money going out of the country for bandwidth used for social networking sites. Similarly, the CCC is designed to handle customer complaints received through e-mail, chat, instant messaging, SMS, fax and social networking sites.
In the coming fiscal year, the state-owned telecom giant has aimed to distribute phone, mobile and internet lines extensively to boost its income. A total of 3.53 phone lines are projected to be distributed in the next fiscal, which include 3 million GSM mobile lines, 472,000 CDMA lines, 27,400 landlines and 29,900 ADSL internet lines.
With regard to data service, the company will increase distribution of WiMax broadband and EVDO under CDMA technology. NT launched WiMax and Sky Pro also known as EVDO internet service from the current fiscal year as part of its strategy to grab a bigger piece of the data market. However, NT has not been able to speed up distribution of Sky Pro due to a shortage of compatible handsets and USB dongles.
“We will make an aggressive push in the market from the next fiscal year for distribution of IP CDMA lines having both voice and high speed internet service,” said Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai, director of the Wireless Telephone Directorate.
He added that the company would sign agreements with three handset dealers and also distribute USB dongles by bundling them with its data service.
Meanwhile, NT has projected a growth in income of 4.84 percent compared to the target set for the current fiscal year. It had targeted an annual turnover of Rs 36.81 billion for the current fiscal year. NT’s budget for the current fiscal year, which closes on July 15, amounts to Rs 62.36 billion.
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