Nepal Telecom is preparing to launch the 4G LTE network in more areas before Dashain Festival. The no of cities to have the Ntc 4G network will be around 20 to 25.
The Government-owned company is in full swing for the preparation to make the 4G expansion smooth and successful.
Nepal Telecom has already tested its core network and performed system migration. After the core integration, Ntc has been testing 4G radio access network throughout the country. Onlinekhabar reports quoting Mr. Dilli Adhikari (Ntc MD) of the same. Their Engineers have been working day and night to make the 4G launch possible in those areas before Dashain.
We can expect the major metropolitan cities and municipalities to cover by Ntc in the first phase. After which, they will expand the 4G coverage to much more areas, across the country. This is like a global trend to start a new technology from the core city areas and then expand to other areas. Same is the case for the availability of a 5G network in developed countries where people can find wide-scale 5G network in 2020 only.
NTC says they will complete all of the remaining works in the upcoming 4 months to keep the target date of 1 year. This seems a big goal to achieve with the multi-million dollar 4G project (around 18 billion NRs).
For the 4G expansion project, Chinese companies ZTE corp and CCSI, Hong kong supplied the Core and RAN equipment to Ntc.
It is true that Telcos starts the testing of a network after the successful integration. It is also known Ntc has tested their 4G mobile network in Dhangadi, which exceeded their expectations for the performance, as per Karobar daily. They might be testing their mobile network in more places, which we will update soon.
As we know the no of 4G subscribers has increased significantly in the last year, Ntc’s 4G expansion will add more 4G subscribers.
NTA data shows the no of 4G subscribers in Ntc is 8 lakhs whereas, for Ncell, there are around 29.3 lakhs 4G users. The third-largest Smart Telecom has around 2.1 lakhs 4G users, making a total of 39 lakhs and 40 thousand (3.9 million). With the expansion of Ntc 4G, we can expect this number to take a big leap.
Nepal Telecom had launched 4G LTE network for the first time on Jan 1, 2017. That time, Ntc upgrade the 2G, 3G equipment for the 4G network. More than two years passed, they were not able to expand the high-speed network beyond those two cities. Now that they have already brought the necessary equipment, installed/integrated into their network, Ntc 4G expansion to more areas is certain. It is only a matter of some days or week when people in those areas can actually use the 4G LTE network.
As known, the current model of Ntc 4G expansion is Overlay model, which runs alongside the already established 2G, 3G network. This is quite opposite to the up-gradation model that Ntc had done before. The overlay 4G model involves separate equipment other than those used for 2G, 3G. This helps the operator to build a new 4G network without disturbing the 2G, 3G network. Here is a simple explanation of 2G, 3G, 4G networks.
Nepal Telecom will use all of those equipment used in 4G for 5G technology. They have already stated that equipment to be compatible for 5G upgrade, with which they will provide the 5G in 4 cities as per the directives from MoCIT. The infrastructure that is being developed now for 4G, will also facilitate the introduction of 5G promptly when needed. As per the current market trend and customers demand, Nepal needs to wait for some years before investing in the 5G network.
Source: https://www.nepalitelecom.com/2019/09/nepal-telecom-preparing-4g-lte-launch-before-dashain.html