Nepal Telecom (NT) plans to build an optical fiber link to China by the middle of 2011, company officials said.
The state-owned telco has been in talks with China Telecom on deploying the cable and has built some of the preliminary infrastructure, Anoopranjan Bhattarai, deputy managing director, planning division, toldRepublica newspaper.
The new system will link Nepal Telecom network with China Telecom from stations near the Nepal border by the end of the next financial year in July 2011, Republica said.
The two carriers signed an MoU for the terrestrial cable two years ago and were now discussing the financial arrangements, Surendra Thike, a Nepal Telecom spokesperson, said.
“We are discussing bandwidth, leasing period and financial aspect of the deal,” Thike said.
NT currently sends traffic to China through a fiber link to India. “If optical fiber connection with China is established, the cost of telecommunication services to and from other countries will significantly drop,” Bhattarai said.
He said the new cable would also be able to provide extra capacity on the massive China-India route.
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