Data published by telecoms regulator the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) shows that the total number of internet users in the mountain Kingdom surged to 5.04 million last month, nearly double the 3.11 million figure recorded in Juy 2011. The rise in popularity of the internet in Nepal is being driven by new technologies such as wireless and fibre, it said.
According to the watchdog’s Management Information System (MIS) report August 2012 (covering the period 15-Jun to 14-July 2012), a total of 4.683 million people subscribed to GPRS services provided by Nepal Telecom (NT) or Spice Nepal Private (Ncell) by mid-July, while a further 92,302 had a DSL connection from NT. In addition, the NTA’s MIS report highlighted that wireless and fibre-optic subscriptions reached 45,602 (double the figure reported a year earlier), cable modem lines stood at 17,968, CDMA 1x users topped 188,210 and dial-up had declined to 15,079 from 20,355 in July 2011.