NTA Bans ‘Viber Out’ Service in Nepal

Viber Out, a calling service of a popular app ‘Viber’, that allowed the users to make calls to near landline and mobile globally has been a banned by Nepal Telecommunications Authority(NTA). The service was made available to users with an intention to make the life of people who travel easier without worrying about roaming and the local SIM.

NTA issued a public notice on Monday which stated the that ‘Viber Out ‘ service would now be illegal. The Viber Out service that was launched in the last week of July has been banned by NTA stating that domestic laws have provision to allow IP to IP calls and restricts IP to mobile/landline call. They also said that the service had made much of the impact in the revenue collection of the government.

Users have to recharge their Viber Out accounts through a local agent of Viber to use this service. While doing so, Viber takes a notable sum of domestic currency while the government gets nothing,” said Min Prasad Aryal, spokesperson for NTA.

NTA on finding any user using Viber Out can penalize up to Rs. 50,000. They will start inspecting about the service being used after Dashain and take action to the firms and individuals responsible for using or promoting the service.