Nepal Telecom announced a tender for new IPTV platform. The company wants to provide its digital TV service with its autonomy and has issued invitation for electronic bid from eager bidder which will be responsible for delivery, installation, and commissioning of IPTV system and accessories.
The state-backed company is seeking a new platform after its contract for NT TV with the current firm ends. Presently, the company has an extended contract with Kalash from Nepal and VNPT Technology from Vietnam in a joint venture till December 2025. The two earned a contract jointly in 2019 for five years after NT announced a tender to run its IPTV service. By that duration, the partnership ended in 2024, but as per an agreement, it was extended till the end of 2025.
NT is currently providing IPTV services to its FTTH subscribers through revenue sharing partnership model, while it is not the case for the new tender.
Nepal Telecom’s NT TV service provides HD and SD TV channels through fiber cable. It comes as part of a Triple Play service, which also brings along NT Fiber internet and telephone connection. The service was officially launched in January 2021. It provides over 185 TV channels from different categories, covering all the popular ones.
“NT intends to deploy its own Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and OTT video service platforms along with headend, set top boxes and OTT App to offer multi-services along with other Value-Added Services through the fixed and mobile networks,” the company said.
Nepal Telecom will now operate IPTV platform on its own, with the supplied equipment. Currently, the company shares its revenue with its partner.
As of now, its current partner is responsible for operating IPTV, OTT, installation of Set-top-box (STB), and other hardware and software. But it plans to have authority in the service with the exit of its present collaborators.
In its bidding documents, NT said that the bidder shall design, supply, install and commission the complete IPTV system with STB, encoder, and transcoder, etc. The company will host the digital TV service’s management system in its private cloud system. And while a tender has been out for NT TV, NTC has postponed price bid opening for its new billing system.
The bidder will also be responsible for the migration of subscriber data from the current system to the new. The bidder will also have to arrange necessary migration tool. Also, the current users with existing STBs will still be able to watch NT TV without issues.
NTC stresses that the new IPTV solution support SVOD (Subscription Video-on-Demand)and AVOD (Advertising-Based Video-on-Demand) services.
With a new partner on board, the company’s IPTV could see further improvement in its TV channel setup and user experience.
Source: https://www.nepalitelecom.com/nepal-telecom-ntc-tender-for-nt-tv-operation
