Money
Ncell to spend Rs12b on infra
Privately owned telecom giant Ncell announced Monday that it would be spending Rs12 billion over the next eight months to expand its telecommunications infrastructure.Privately owned telecom giant Ncell announced Monday that it would be spending Rs12 billion over the next eight months to expand its telecommunications infrastructure.
“We will be investing around Rs12 billion for the remainder of 2016,” said Simon Perkins, managing director of Ncell. “We will focus the investment in Nepal where it matters—building telecommunications infrastructure for better network and quality coverage, in our aim to serve the people of Nepal for the longer term.”
Under the ambitious investment plan, Ncell will be expanding its footprint into remote and rural areas, aiming to bolster connectivity and create opportunities for underserved communities in those regions, aside from enhancing network capacity in cities to deliver high-speed internet, the company said in a statement.
“We will go out aggressively in the deployment of our 3G and high speed expansion in rural and remote areas.
Our plan is to set up and establish 218 new sites to reach out to new towns and village development committees this year,” said Perkins.
In addition, 214 new sites will be built to address coverage gaps in regions where Ncell is also present.
“As a service provider, we shoulder the responsibility to ensure our customers have access to mobile services at all times, more so during a crisis when people need to stay connected with their loved ones. Hence, containerized data centres are high on our priority,” said Perkins.
Ncell presently maintains data centres in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Hetauda and Biratnagar. The centres in Pokhara and Hetauda are containerized and able to withstand high magnitude earthquakes and fire, enabling operations to be activated within an hour even in the worst-case scenarios.