State-owned national fixed line and mobile operator Nepal Telecom (NT) has reported a net income of US$150.1 million in the fiscal year 2009/2010.

According to the company, as at the start of this year it had a total of 6.19 million customers, including 4.56 million GSM and 1.04 million CDMA mobile users, and 592,000 PSTN (landline) customers. The company is also planning a bridge-programme to expand its telephone network and try to offset the delay in launching its ambitious Next Generation Network (NGN).

As per the plan, NT is establishing 80 Optical Network Units (ONU) as part of the NGN bridging project which aims to modernize the operator’s PSTN for the transmission of voice, data and video services.

According to Amar Nath Singh, Managing Director, NT, they are introducing ONU because the new tender process for NGN and IP CDMA will take at least six months. 14 ONU will be installed in the central development region of the country and the remaining 66 in other developing towns.

The bridge-programme will add 25,500 telephone lines and 3,600 ADSL connections to the NT network, and will be completed in the current fiscal year, it said. At the end of 2010 NT had provided ADSL service in all districts in the country and had connected 73,000 lines out of the total installed capacity of 156,152 DSL lines. In total, it had 580,000 internet users at the same date.