The quality of service is declining due to the use of inferior equipment by Nepal Telecom. Experts say the service is declining because the telco uses equipment from companies that do not have a Satisfactory Performance Certificate (SPC) report.
A study conducted by the regulatory body, the Telecommunications Authority, states that telecom services are of low quality. According to a study conducted by NEA from April 2077 BS to May 2078 BS, the mobile service of the telco was of low quality. NEA had tested the quality of mobile service in Kathmandu Valley. The study report states that the service of Telecom is of lower quality than that of Ncell. In the shortest time (5.27 seconds) when making a local call within one's own network, the call is set up in Ncell's network, while in Nepal Telecom's mobile, the call time is 9.34 seconds. Similarly, the network of Smart Telecom has taken 10.27 seconds.
Telecom is also weak in terms of the success rate to be established tomorrow. Ncell's call-up success rate is 94.43 percent, while Telecom's network has a success rate of 90.51 percent. The phone call disconnection rate is 0.87 percent in Telecom, 0.45 percent in Smart Telecom, and 0.2 percent in Ncell. Not only the low quality but also the service of the telco has been disrupted time and again but there has been no improvement.
The service was disrupted for about two and a half hours on July 26 due to a problem in the HLR system. It has been alleged that the problem has arisen due to the connection of equipment of the company which does not have a good performance certificate. Telecom's HLR system is connected by China's ZTE Corporation. ZTE is the largest vendor selling equipment at Nepal Telecom. The company has been selling equipment worth billions of rupees to the telco for years.
Managing Director of Nepal Telecom Dilliram Adhikari also admitted that the service was disrupted due to a problem with the equipment connected by ZTE. "The company has repaired the HLR system after seeing a problem," he said.
The quality of service provided by the telco has been criticized time and again. Telecom services have been disrupted eight times since 2016. Nepal Telecom had formed a committee to investigate the service disruption last June. A month later, the report has not been made public. Chairman of the Nepal Telecom Nepal Telecom Employees Union Yadav Paneru said that they were reluctant to make public the reason for the service disruption.
The system had problems identifying the mobile user's location when the service was interrupted. Location The system forwards the call to the corresponding number only after each update. But since the location is not identified, there is a problem within the core network called HLR.
It is alleged that the investigation committee formed under the leadership of Telecom's CCO Pratibha Vaidya prepared the report but kept it secret. Paneru, president of the employees' union, said that the problem in HLR was a mystery. "The service has been disrupted due to low traffic in the morning," Paneru said. The union has demanded that the investigation report be made public. "If it is due to low-quality equipment, the vendor should be punished," Paneru said.
The organization has stated that it has ignored the repeated attention of the management to improve the service. The organization fears that the revenue of the telco is declining day by day and the service has been disrupted time and again.
Nepal Telecom had formed an investigation committee in 2019 BS under the coordination of the then Chief Technical Officer Ananda Vaidya after the quality deteriorated and the service was disrupted. The Vaidya-led committee had concluded that the problem was due to low-quality equipment, there was not enough spare card in the router, the router was less reliable and there were problems in the past. In the report, it was mentioned that the equipment of the company should not be connected if the SPC report is not good.
The Vaidya-led committee had prepared a report that ZTE Corporation's ADXR 10M6000 series router was unsatisfactory. Although the SPC report of ZTE Company is not satisfactory, Telecom has been using the equipment of the same company. It has been criticized that the telco did not take action even after the service was disrupted for two and a half hours due to the equipment of ZTE company.
"Even after the investigation committee submits a report that the equipment is unsatisfactory, the company is constantly buying goods," said a telecom official.
