Have you ever dialled 100 to call the police using United Telecom Limited or Smart Telecom line? Or have you tried calling the fire brigade (101), using Ncell service? If you have, you know these numbers are not reachable, all thanks to the negligence of the telecom sector regulator and companies. Result: More than 50 per cent of telephone subscribers have been barred from using emergency numbers.
Three-digit short codes starting with digit ‘1’ have been allocated for emergency services such as police (100), fire brigade (101), ambulance (102), traffic police (103), Children Search Coordination Centre (104), Nepali Army-Kathmandu (105) and military police (106). As per the provision of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, the telecom sector regulator, all telecom companies are obligated to provide access to emergency numbers to their customers free of charge.
But customers of Nepal Telecom, the state-owned telecom company, can only use all emergency numbers free of cost. Ncell customers can make calls in two emergency numbers only — 100 and 102. But when it comes to other small players such as UTL, Smart Telecom, Nepal Satellite Telecom and STM Telecom Sanchar, customers of these telecom providers cannot make calls to any of the emergency numbers.
Customers of private sector telecom companies also cannot make calls to Hello Sarkar (1111) set up for registering complaints related to government services.
Out of the total 23 million subscribers, Ncell and small companies have a combined user base of 13 million. “There is a condition that the same number must be used by all telecom companies for emergency services,” said Min Prasad Aryal, Deputy Director, NTA. “Small telecom companies are unable to provide these free services because of the failure to solve issues like ‘carrier access charge’ with NT. NT, which is also the pioneer operator, has main investment in infrastructure that helps operate the emergency numbers.
Private telecom companies say they are unable to link their customers’ call to emergency numbers for lack of support from NTA. “In the initial stage, NT had allowed to route our calls to 100 but later the service was suspended due to interconnection charge issue,” said Keshab Gyawali, Deputy Manager, UTL.
Guna Keshari Pradhan, Spokesperson for NT, said as NT was providing access to emergency services for free, ‘it is technically difficult to let other operators use NT’s infrastructure’. “The regulator needs to come up with a clear policy to solve interconnection-related issues,” she said.
After failing to get direct access to NT’s infrastructure, Ncell had to take the initiative on its own to route calls to 100 and 102 by enhancing the infrastructure of police and ambulance service providers. Ncell’s Corporate Communication Expert Milan Sharma said, “The company has been holding discussions with concerned agencies to let its subscribers use emergency numbers like 101 and 103.”
