NTA Provides ISP Licence to Five New Companies

Nepal now has new Internet Service Providers (ISP) as the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has provided ISPs licenses to five companies reports, The Himalayan Times.

The five companies are Himalayan Gorkha Net, City Net, KCN Net, Pathivara Network and Prime Net.

Min Prasad Aryal, NTA Spokesperson, said that the decision to issue new ISP licenses intends to expand internet services across the country.

Through this decision, NTA wants to increase people’s access to internet services and increase its revenue to run different internet projects in the country.

The increased numbers of ISPs will also help promote competition among the ISPs which will benefit the consumers. According to the NTA, 110 domestic companies have ISP licenses out of which 72 ISPs are in operation. The rest have either not renewed their ISP licenses or not paid their dues. The major ISPs in operation are Subisu, WorldLink, ClassicTech, and Vianet.

Most internet users prefer internet service of telecom companies over domestic ISPs. As per NTA’s estimation, there are almost 16 million active internet users in the country, of whom only 248,000 users are using internet services of ISPs.

NTA data also showed that users prefer Nepal Telecom as their ISP with almost eight million users.