Nepal Telecom Seeking Independent Power Supplies

Nepal Telecom (NT) is planning to deploy a range of alternative power supplies for its base stations in the face of continuing supply problems from the national electricity grid. The mobile network operator has been blaming the ever-increasing power-cuts, which hit 20 hours a day last week, for its deteriorating GSM service.

"It's high time we improved our quality of service. Since the electricity supplier is itself powerless, and it looks like it cannot do anything about it until the rainy season, we have been forced to look at powering up our BTSs ourselves," Rabindra Jha, manager of NT's Mobile Service Directorate, told myrepublica.com. "Sixty-three BTSs in Kathmandu Valley were down on Monday, while it was 48 on Tuesday, 21 on Wednesday, and 47 on Thursday," he added.

The company is looking at a range of options from solar powered base stations to mobile units which can be moved around based on local failure points.

"We are looking at providing these to 100 areas in the first phase. In this phase we will give priority to essential areas like hospitals and large offices," Jha said.

Many of the urban base stations already have back-up batteries, but the power cuts have become so frequent that the batteries are not having enough time to recharge before the next power outage occurs.

Nepal Telecom is the dominant operator in the country. According to figures from the Mobile World database, the operator ended last September with around 2.3 million customers.

On the web: myrepublica - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 14th March 2009