Telecom service operators have asked the government to introduce guidelines for infrastructure sharing at the earliest to speed up development in the telecommunication sector in a cost effective way.
They said that infrastructure sharing had become necessary as stiff competition required them to reduce the time and expense for building infrastructure.
In the absence of a policy on sharing infrastructure, the six telecom service operators -- Nepal Telecom, Spice Nepal, United Telecom, Nepal Television, Smart Telecom, Nepal Satellite and STM Telecom -- have been building base tower station (BTS) and other necessary infrastructure by themselves to expanding their network coverage.
"Infrastructure sharing is a must in the present context to widen the network to various parts of the country and increase the tele-density," said S Kannan, chief executive
of United Telecom, while speaking at a discussion programme organized by the telecom sector regulator Nepal Telecom-medications Authority (NTA) on the occasion of its 12th anniversary.
Mani Chaulagai, chief executive officer of Nepal Satellite, said that they were very open to tower sharing with other telecom service operators. "As we have built towers at the highest locations, they can be used by other operators too; and they should also let us expand our service using their infrastructure," he added.
According to telecom giant Nepal Telecom, it has already started the process on infrastructure sharing by proposing to other service providers to build common BTSs. They plan to construct towers and other common infrastructure by setting up an independent joint venture company.
So far, NT has installed 1,400 BTSs for its GSM and CDMA services, Spice Nepal has 650 BTSs and UTL is operating 133 BTSs in various places of the country.
"We have called for applications from interested consultants to carry out a study and recommend modalities for infrastructure sharing to increase the rural tele-density and to develop guidelines for infrastructure sharing," said NTA spokesperson Kailash Neupane. "We will soon be selecting a consultant to conduct the survey," he added.