My Net and Lumbini Net obtained fresh permits from the NTA while Mega Broadcast and Otel Communications bought the licences held by existing ISPs, Everest Net and Zentech International respectively. The four entrants have joined the market when demand for data services is increasing and two major telecom operators, Nepal Telecom and Ncell, are keeping a firm grip on the top slots.
My Net is based in Dharan while Lumbini Net is based in Tansen, Palpa. As per the NTA’s latest Management Information Report, it has also issued Rural ISP licences to two companies, Pico Soft in Pokhara and Syangja Internet in Syangja to provide internet services in their localities.
NTA charges Rs 300,000 for the ISP licence, which allows service operation nationwide. The charge for Rural ISP licence, which allows operation in only one village development committee, is set at Rs 100.
NTA officials said that the new companies will have a difficult time breaking into the market as Ncell, Nepal Telecom and United Telecom Limited have wide area coverage through their infrastructure of wireless networks to provide mobile internet services. “Even big ISPs like Mercantile and World Link are finding it hard to exist in market,” said Ananda Raj Khanal, chief of the NTA.
Mega Broadcast had announced last year that it would be starting the country’s first terrestrial digital television service under the MyTV brand. At that time, it had also said that it would provide the fastest data service with speeds of up to 1 Gbps.
However, it has been nearly a year since Mega Broadcast obtained a licence for terrestrial digital television service from the Ministry of Information and Communications but it has not started the service so far. The company had more than 1,300 dial-up internet service subscribers as of mid-November last year.
Similarly, Otel Communi-cations which bought Zentech’s licence has 139 customers in the wireless modem and optical fibre ethernet data service category. Otel is a sister organisation of Otel International that has received a permit to operate pre-paid calling card services in the county.
Meanwhile, Ncell is leading the market in terms of subscriber base with a 50 percent share. State-owned Nepal Telecom has a 48 percent market share while United Telecom Limited and ISPs hold the rest.
Many potential ISPs have had their licences cancelled by the government as they failed to begin operations due to increased competition and lack of capital.
http://ekantipur.com/2014/01/16/business/four-new-isps-join-internet-services-fray/383997.html
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