KATHMANDU: Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) has prepared a draft of the bylaw on infrastructure sharing among service providers with the target to make infrastructure sharing mandatory within one month.
NTA Chairman Purushottam Khanal informed that the authority will finalize the draft of the bylaw within a month and make sharing of telecommunication infrastructure mandatory among service providers. “NTA will issue separate licenses for telecommunication infrastructure service providers after issuance of the bylaw. However, we are yet to finalize in what modality the licenses will be issued,” said Khanal.
Infrastructure sharing concept has been discussed since many years citing that urban beauty has been affected and the cost of the service provider has also increased as telecommunication service providers have their separate infrastructure.
Minister for Communications and Information Technology Parbat Gurung, on the other hand, is for giving Nepal Telecom the license to operate infrastructure company and share its infrastructure with other service providers, as per sources. The draft of the bylaw prepared by NTA states that any service provider should construct telecommunication towers and infrastructure so that at least three service providers can use them.