Nepal ends India’s internet monopoly with Chinese link

A new era of connectivity has dawned in Nepal with its partnership with China to improve the nation’s ICT connectivity network. It was announced that Nepal Telecom and China Telecom Global worked together to lay optical fiber cables between Kerung in China and Rasuwagadi in Nepal connected through the hub at Sudhara in Kathmandu. The new fiber optic cable also provides an alternative in case of natural disasters such as the devastating earthquake in 2015. This project also considers the possibilities for increased bandwidth in the future.

Today, more than 60 percent of Nepal’s population is connected to the Internet, improved from 19 percent in 2012. As part of the Belt and Road initiative, Nepali officials say they are in talks with Beijing over the extension of the Chinese railway network into Nepal from Tibet. With increased connectivity, the two countries will also have better relationships through trade, exchange of ideas, flows of people and investments. The project was inaugurated by the Minister for Information and Communications Mohan Bahadur.

This project also directly promotes AP-IS by providing connectivity, improving upon latency and network resilience and providing access to the Internet for a larger population, thus promoting “broadband for all”. It also contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 9.

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