Status of Internet In Nepal

By Yogesh Gautam | Published On 2019-04-12

History:

History of internet in Nepal started professionally when "Mercantile Communication" started providing internet service along with the service of email in 2051 BS(1994 AD). Similarly, "World link" also started providing internet service in Kathmandu valley. The competition of these two companies, helped internet to grow. Similarly Nepal Telecom Started Providing Internet from 2058 BS causing thousands of Nepalese to connect internet through home. Today Nepal Telecom has become largest ISP Provider in Nepal followed by several other companies like: Ncell, Merchantile, WorldLink, Subishu, Vianet, Webserfer etc . Mobile WAP and GPRS Service Provided by Ncell and NTC made internet in the hands of thousands of Nepalese. Although in the past year, Internet was bought only from India, but in recent years Nepal is buying Internet from both India and China.

World Wide Status of Internet Users:

Now, let us have a look at the worldwide status of internet usage.

clearly, with the advance in the technology and the discovery of mobile phones internet users has increased in a drastic manner from 16% Users to 48% Users worldwide within 12 years and the rate is increasing day by day. Similarly, the following figure shows Internet users Based on various regions:

Status Of Internet User and Service Providers In Nepal:

Now, let us talk about the status of internet users in Nepal. The number of internet users in nepal is increasing very rapidly in the recent years. Today internet is regarded as the basic needs. Internet penetration , that is the total percentage of country that uses internet, has increased from 54% to 62% as of October 2017 within 1 year.

According to International Telecommunication Union As of August 2017 , Nepal ranks on 73 based on the number of internet users. however, based on the percentage of internet users it ranks 174. which means majority of percentage of Nepalese in 2017 are unable to use internet. The percentage is more in rural areas than in urban areas. so, there is still a lots of improvement needed to make the availability of internet to all rural areas as well as also increase the percentage in urban areas.

Lately as per the report of Nepal Telecommunication Authority 10.23 percent of population has access to fixed broadband(wired), 1.10 percent have access to fixed broadband(wireless) and the remaining 89 percent subscribers use mobile internet. the trend of voice and data services has increased to 62% as of 2018 the trend is shown in the figure below:

And the market share of data/internet users is mostly occupied by NTC/NDCL(Nepal Doorsanchar Limited) and NCELL Occupying around 52% and 44.5% respectively which is shown in figure below:

Today there are more than 20 Internet subscribers operating in nepal which is shown in the figure below along with some other details.

Internet Quality (Speed)

Now, let's have a look at the internet quality/speed in Nepal. As, per the report in speedtest.com Nepal ranks 128 with 8.57 Mbps Speed in Mobile whereas Nepal ranks 103 with 17.57Mbps Speed in Fixed Broadband which is shown in figure below:

Norway is in the top of Mobile Global Speed followed by Canada and Netherlands Respectively with speed of 67.34 Mbps, 65.14 Mbps and 60.75Mbps respectively. whereas Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea is at the top of the list on the basis of fixed bandwidth with speed of 195.36 Mbps, 165.34 Mbps and 137.30 Mbps respectively. Talking about south Asia, Sri Lanka is at rank 59 with highest speed in south Asia for Mobile Speed. whereas, India's top's the list of Fixed Broadband with global rank 68.

The following table shows the rank of various countries based on internet speed in south asia: