4G in Nepal!!! Is really a 4G or LTE??? It’s Scope and Hurdles…

4G in Nepal!!! Is really a 4G or LTE??? It’s Scope and Hurdles…

Finally,Nepal government, Ministry of Information and Communication have decided to adopt a technology neutral policy to allow operators to lunch 4G using the 1800-MHz. So now operators can lunch the 4G service to its customers.

Before few weeks, Nepal Telecommunication Authority(NTA) : a government head body that monitors, governs and regulates the telecom operators  in Nepal: announces  that  it is preparing for the frequency spectrum , frequency distribution and cost analysis &  also announces for submission of proposal  for 4G operation to the operators. This declaration has opened the door for the telecom Operators to lunch the 4G LTE service in Nepal. This announcement has been taken a good response from the public people as well.

Is it really a 4G or LTE???

4G is the 4^th generation mobile data service with its high speed download and upload of packet data.

LTE is Long Term Evolution as the next generation data service aimed to fulfill the demand of 3^rd generation data scarcity. LTE have been constantly developed and improved. So LTE-A (A-advanced) is the next generation LTE service. LTE can be upgraded with the utilization on ongoing GSM and UMTS carrier.

Many of us and even operators have been consciously used the term LTE and 4G interchangeably. Technically they are different.  4G define the D/L (Downlink) data rates of 100Mb/s during high mobility i.e during travelling with high speed on bus, trains & 1 Gb/s during stationary. Now let’s examine the speed on those countries where 4G is deployed. The above speed has not been achieved yet. Cellphone power, cell phone antenna, MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), carrier aggregation, etc. are the several technical challenges behind this.

However, on contrary LTE defines the theoretical speed of 100Mb/s as D/L. The practical speed has been varied among operators. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using a different radio interface together with core network improvements. LTE have been in operation in 16 countries as of 2015 and is being deployed by 140 operators in 56 countries.

The two major operators NT and Ncell on their statement expressed, they are willing to lunch the 4G LTE service. 

NT plans to provide within all 75 districts of Nepal 4G service by 2017/18 but it hasn’t been able to keep up its place to meet its targets. Since, NT still hasn’t provided 3G service to all over Nepal. Its in the expansion process. So to meets its target is yet dubious and challenging itself.

Ncell now owned by Axiata Group, a competitor of NT has been  focused on quality services with adaption of 3G. Focusing on major cities, it has already provided 3G services. Ncell have shown keen interest for adoption of 4G-LTE  before few months. At that time even NTA had not been prepared and planned for frequency distribution .