The current government, through its commitment, policy and program, and budget speech, has set a goal of expanding data centers and building digital hubs, prioritizing information technology and digitization. The private sector has also been enthusiastic about this. In this context, an edited excerpt of a conversation with Keshav Nepal, CEO of Worldlink Communications, Nepal's leading internet service provider, on the expansion of telecommunication services, the technical complexities of social media regulation, and changing customer behavior: How have you found the attitude of internet service providers and the entire telecommunication sector after the new government came to power? How much do you talk to each other? It has only been a brief conversation so far. Their priority is seen in the development of information technology and they understand that the internet sector is important for this.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about expanding AI hubs and data centers in Nepal. Can Nepal afford a hyperscale data center in terms of energy consumption such as electricity and water?

Investment is currently being made in data centers and. Some data centers are also in operation. The new data centers being built in Kathmandu can meet the current demand. But not all data centers should be concentrated in Kathmandu. In the future, keeping in mind the cooling and power demand, it will have to go to other areas. It is better to expand data centers in big cities like Pokhara and Chitwan or where there are power plants or hydropower nearby. Given the current situation, we have the energy to reach the data center.

A company like ours, which has fiber in 70 districts, regional offices in more than 150 places and more than 5,000 people, does not have a challenge to expand telecom services.

There are rumors that a third service provider will enter Nepal's telecommunications sector. Are you also interested? Is there space and market for this? Hydropower production is also increasing. There may be some problems in winter. For that, the government should invest in not only ‘run of the river’ but also pumped-storage systems with various storage options. China is building a large solar farm for data centers in Tibet. We should also pay attention to such alternatives besides hydro, and especially storage options for winter projects.

There is space for a new operator, but there is not. When a completely new operator comes and tries to build all the infrastructure, the cost and operating expenses are high. It is difficult for them. But a company like ours, which has fiber in 70 districts, regional offices in more than 150 places, and more than 5,000 people, does not have a challenge to expand telecom services. For us, this is a big opportunity. We have 70 percent of the infrastructure required for telecom ready. We can provide telecom services by investing an additional 30 percent in towers, power, and switching equipment.

Both the existing service providers have said that the market and income are all declining and the telecommunications service is not in an encouraging situation due to high taxes and policy challenges. What is the basis for your interest in such a situation?

When we started Fiber-to-the-Home 10 years ago, we expected that market expansion would not be easy as it would be a very expensive and costly technology. However, people adopted it enthusiastically. Currently, 3 lakh households are being added to internet service customers annually. Our customer base is about to reach 1.1 million. In the mobile sector too, the strategy of earning only from voice will no longer work. We need to expand the market by integrating mobile, fiber, enterprise, cloud and government facilities. Taxes are high in Nepal's telecom sector. Every 5 years, 20 billion rupees have to be renewed for licenses and 1.5 billion rupees per year as frequency fees. About 500 million rupees a month goes to royalties and frequencies.

Which license are you pushing for?

Rather than becoming a mobile player, it is important for us to provide internet through Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) or 5G to places where fiber cannot reach. If there is less tax on this, the people of the village also get service. It saves their time. This is called ‘consumer surplus’. The government should not get stuck with the old 20 billion mobile license, it should think about a separate license for fixed wireless that does not have new technology and mobility.

5G has reached most of the people in neighboring India, but it could not even be tested in our country, whose weakness is it?

5G equipment is expensive and it is difficult to earn money from it immediately in Nepal. That is why service providers may have decided to move to 5G only a little later. But now, looking at the example of India, the situation of 5G seems good, it has become possible to monetize 5G due to increased data consumption. In our country, no one is interested in it. But the penetration of 5G-enabled mobile handsets has reached 25/30 percent. If 5G is to be provided, they will use it. Again, 4G service has become 'saturated', video calls do not work properly. 5G is necessary to remove this 'congestion' (pressure) and increase data consumption.

Internet service providers have been confused when the question of social media regulation and management arises, the same situation was around the Gen-G movement, why is that?

As a policy, we have to do what the government says. From time to time, the government gives instructions that this site should be closed or this content should be removed. We do those things as much as possible. But technically, blocking everything requires a huge investment and a deep packet inspection (DPI) firewall. No ISP or telecom currently has this. Blocking sites hosted on platforms like Amazon risks blocking legitimate traffic. The services we have are based on dynamic IP. We do not have hardware that can block any specific content. We try to block betting apps and banned sites from DNS and IP as per government guidelines. However, we cannot stop those who use VPNs.

What is the current bandwidth consumption situation? What impact has VPNs had on bandwidth consumption?

Using a VPN increases international bandwidth consumption. That increases our costs and can also slow down the internet. Currently, 80 percent of local and 20 percent of international bandwidth are being consumed. Local means Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok that have cache servers in Nepal. The content is created by Nepalis but hosted on foreign platforms. Currently, TikTok consumes the most bandwidth. Then there is the attraction of YouTube and Facebook.

You say that you have expanded fiber services to 70 districts, but customers in Kathmandu or urban areas have repeatedly raised questions about the quality of service. How have you thought of addressing this?

We are improving the infrastructure. We have arranged ring and dual fiber in Kathmandu. This reduces disruption. Since it takes time to go to the village for maintenance, there may be less 'up time' compared to the city. We are focusing on improving the service by reporting and measuring it daily. Most of the problems are due to WiFi interference. To improve this, we have brought a WiFi Six router.

When the bandwidth is low, complaints are heard that only the router is powerful, what is the use? Some users have sarcastically called the 6G router

‘clothes that are four times bigger than your body’?

I have also heard such reactions. However, when I go to the place where such complaints are received, it seems that the problem is not with the router but with where and how the router is placed. Placing the router in a corner does not reach the signal. If there was a problem with the technology, the same thing would be repeated everywhere and it would be ‘defective’. Since most customers do not have this problem, it may be the problem with how it was placed or where it was installed, not with the product. What is the impact on quality due to the ‘price war’ between ISPs?