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| 22 February, 2012 |
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| Optical fibre project to link Nepal with Asian countries |
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By Business Desk (The Kathmandu Post)
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| Source: ANN |
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The Nepal government is working to establish an optical fibre link between Nepal and India, Bangladesh and Bhutan under an information highway project supported by the Asian Development Bank (ABD).
The project has focused on increasing cross-border connectivity with a backbone bandwidth capacity of 10 Gbps and expanding ICT accessibility in rural communities.
In 2009, the ADB provided US$ 9 million for the South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Information Highway Project. However, progress has been slow. Recently, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) called a global tender for the SASEC project which has three main components—fibre optic connection with three countries, establishment of 30 community e-centres and operation of a resource and training centre.
The SASEC project, targeted for completion within eight months of the contract being awarded, will build a fibre cable connection of 617 km along the BP Highway and the Bardibas-Pathalaiya-Birgunj section.
This will provide an alternate backbone route in Nepal for establishing cross-border connectivity through Cable Landing Station (CLS) at Rani, Biratnagar by connecting to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) network in Jogbani, India and another CLS at Birgunj connected to Raxaul, India.
In India, the ABD has entrusted a similar project to the BSNL, the Indian government-owned telecom company. The MoIC will implement the SASEC project and hand it over to Nepal Telecom for operation and maintenance as per the cabinet decision of May 19, 2011.
To prevent Nepal Telecom from establishing a monopoly, the project has set a pre-condition under which it can use 70 per cent of the bandwidth for commercial purpose while the rest should be provided to internet service providers or telecom operators recommended by the government, according to the MoIC. Similarly, the resource and training centre will be operated by Kathmandu University as part of the project.
MoIC officials said that the SASEC project would help bring down the cost of interconnection charges among Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Bhutan and provide better data and voice service at a lower price.
Surendra Lal Hada, technical expert at the MoIC, said there would be alternative routes after the completion of the project and Nepal would have an opportunity to work as a transit route for India and China.
"Traffic to and from third countries can be handled with India’s undersea optical fibre cable connection in the future and eliminate dependency on satellite connections,” he added.
The project will also lay fibre cable from Hetauda to Biratnagar via Bardibas and from Hetauda to Birgunj via Pathlaiya. The 10 Gbps bandwidth is envisioned to support multiple-services and provide backbone capacity for a number of services including next generation networks, internet protocol (IP) TV, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) services, high speed internet and digital TV. Currently, Nepal Telecom’s optical fibre infrastructure has a maximum bandwidth capacity of 4 Gbps.
Hada said that the project would promote ICT facilities in rural areas by establishing CECs for providing multiple services that include voice, data and video conferencing at low prices. Such centres will be brought into operation under the public-private partnership model.
Despite developments in the information and communication sector, subscription to the internet has not increased as anticipated, and benefits of the development ICT sector have been mainly concentrated in cities and towns. The slow growth in internet penetration has been attributed to a high tariff, quality issues and lack of adequate communication infrastructure for cross-border connectivity.
The Nepal Telecommunications Authority’s latest report shows that the country’s internet penetration rate stands at 14.55 per cent with 3.87 million data customers. Out of them, 3.55 million are GPRS users. |
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