Gov red tape hindering plan to improve quality: Telcos
REPUBLICA
KATHMANDU, June 22: Telecom operators have blamed the government red tape and power crisis as the two major reasons affecting their service quality.
Speaking at an interaction on ´Issues on Quality of Service and Interconnection´ organized by Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) here on Friday, officials of five different operators suggested that the government come up with one window policy to facilitate telcos in maintaining their quality of service.
NTA had organized the interaction to seek clarifications from the operators on why they were delaying the implementation of its instruction on improving quality of service. The telecom sector operation in December last year had issued a strong instruction to the operators, asking them to improve quality of service within six months.
NTA had issued the instruction after a study commissioned by it came up with a conclusion that service quality of all the operators was unsatisfactory.
Ananda Raj Khanal, director of NTA, lamented that telecom operators have not imported their service quality yet. “Customers might reject you if the quality of your service continues to deteriorate,” added Khanal, urging telcos to take the issue seriously.
Speaking in the program, Rabindra Jha of Nepal Telecom (NT) said the state-controlled operator was soon implementing call center project to better address its customers complains. “The unsatisfactory service quality is the outcome of the government´s administrative hurdles and unplanned urbanization,” added Jha.
Deepesh Shiwakoti of Ncell echoed Jha and urged NTA to play the role of facilitator. “If implemented, one window policy of the government can be a great help to us in bettering our service quality,” added Shiwakoti.
Keshab Gynwali of United Telecom Limited suggested NTA to come with a policy so that operators can use each others´ infrastructure under barter system. “Such policy along with infrastructure sharing will help better quality of service and bring down the tariff,” he said.
Listening to the suggestions of the operators, Anup Nepal, under-secretary of Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, suggested telcos to create a pressure group so that the government becomes compelled to address their demands by shortening administrative process.
Meanwhile, NTA has unveiled a plan to study the quality of telecom services on different link roads of East-West Highway. Khanal set NTA had also sought advice from International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to set benchmark for QoS as per international parameters.
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Gov Red Tape Hindering Plan To Improve Quality: Telcos
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