Nepal Telecom to provide 4G LTE in 800/1800/2300 band before Dashain 2076

Nepal Telecom is aimed to provide fourth generation data and voice services, 4G LTE in major places of Nepal before Dashain 2076. LTE is Long term evolution evolved from 3G to meet the 4G network speed. For this, Nepal telecom will be using frequency spectrum band of 800, 1800 and 2100 MhZ.

This news have came out as Nepal Telecom is struggling in expanding 4G LTE network. Since, only 2 places Kathmandu and Pokhara have been equipped with 4G LTE network. As Nepal telecom is the first operator in nepal to provide the country’s first 4G LTE network from January-1, 2019 but after 2 years of service also, NT couldn’t make progress in expanding 4G Network. On the other hand, private telecom company Ncell have expanded its 4G network in more than 1000 places in all seven provenience in a short span of 1 year. As Ncell have commercially launched 4G LTE in June 1,2019.

Nepal telecom is currently providing 4G LTE in 1800 MhZ adopting neutral technology. 1800 band have been widely used for 2G services worldwide but using OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology, 1800 MhZ can be used to provide 4G LTE services. Recently, NT have successfully tested the VoLTE for the first time in Nepal.

Now, NT will use additional frequency band of 800 and 2100 to provide the LTE services. For this, telecom have already purchased the frequency spectrum. This figure below shows the allocated frequency spectrum for Nepal Telecom and Ncell.

800 MhZ(20) band have low frequency thus higher wavelength and can travel longer distance. So Nepal Telecom is using this band 20 in rural areas to provide the superior data rate in longer distance. Not only this, one BTS(tower) using band 20 can serve upto 20 Km thus reducing in installing multiple BTS. This band 20 is widely used in Europe. After this service in rural areas, people need not to be worry about the data services and other SIM card will not be required.

Similarly, 1800 MhZ(3) band and 2300 MhZ (40) band will be used by NT to provide 4G LTE in highly dense areas. This both band offer higher bandwidth and serves large user at once providing higher higher data rates. But, this frequency band cannot travel longer distance but can penetrate in small spaces so will be used in congested places.

We suggest you to check if your current smartphones can these LTE frequency band or not. Also, before buying new smartphones,make sure to buy the device that supports these band along with VoLTE.

For this fourth generation mobile service, NT have been doing homework from a quite long. But after two years of exercise, in February 2019 Nepal telecom have done agreement with CCSI and ZTE to expand 4G LTE network across whole nepal. The agreement aims to complete the task within 2019. So NT is targeting to provide next generation cellular services in the major places of Nepal before Dashain of 2076.