by Krishana Prasain in The Kathmandu Post, Oct 5, 2023
Nepal’s 5G trials have been thrown into disarray as geopolitics causes planned tests in four provinces to be halted, while the progress report of ongoing tests in three provinces remains unknown.

Analysts say the country’s move to fifth generation mobile technology could be put back by years as a result.

State-owned company Nepal Telecom has been conducting internal 5G trials in Babarmahal and Sundhara in Bagmati, Pokhara in Gandaki and Birgunj in Madhesh, and was planning to extend the tests to the other four provinces.

But officials say the tryout cannot be done because a licence to import equipment has been denied.

Nepal Telecom plans to obtain the equipment from two Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE, which apparently has raised concerns among other powers, analysts said.

“We had written to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority last November asking for a permit to import equipment for the 5G trials. There has been no response,” said Shobhan Adhikari, spokesperson for Nepal Telecom.

“We cannot import the equipment until we get the licence,” Adhikari said.

But Achyuta Nand Mishra, deputy director of the Nepal Telecommunications Authority, says they have already sent an approval letter to Nepal Telecom allowing it to import the materials.

“We have received no such letter. If we had received the approval, we would have already imported the equipment,” Adhikari said.

On November 22, 2021, Nepal Telecom received the spectrum allotment and trial permission from the regulator to conduct 5G trials. Subsequently, it formed a task force in mid-December.

Since then, Nepal Telecom has announced several launch dates for 5G trials for the public, but they have always been postponed for no apparent reason.

The last time Nepal Telecom announced the start of 5G trials in public places was during the company’s anniversary on February 5. But it deferred the plan.

Analysts say the 5G trial is being pushed around like a piece on a geopolitical chessboard.

“Globally, 5G has become a matter of geopolitics and competition in data systems and security. The big players—the United States, India and China—are engaged in a fierce competition which has deadlocked 5G trials in Nepal,” said foreign policy expert Vijay Kant Karna.

“Huawei’s cyber security and data security systems have been questioned globally. For this reason, the US and India may have expressed concern over the 5G trials in Nepal,” said Karna, a former Nepali ambassador to Denmark.

Unnamed officials at the American and Indian embassies told the Post that they were concerned about the Nepal government allowing the Chinese companies to conduct the 5G tests without going through a competitive bidding process.

In February 2019, Nepal Telecom contracted the two Chinese companies—Hong Kong-based China Communication Service International (CCSI) and one of China’s leading telecom equipment manufacturers ZTE—to implement a Rs19 billion 4G LTE expansion project in the country.

CCSI would work on the radio access network while ZTE would install the core network.

In October 2018, Nepal Telecom invited global bids to expand 4G service, and CCSI and ZTE were selected within two months of the bid submission. But the process came to a halt after a case was filed at the anti-graft body.

A year later in October 2019, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) directed the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to go ahead with the plan.

The government has also contracted the same company to continue the 5G trial, which some officials say was a violation of the public procurement rule.

Geopolitics in 5G has been heating up globally.

On July 2022, the Biden administration banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE citing that they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.

The move represented Washington’s crackdown on the Chinese tech giants amid fears that Beijing could use them to spy on Americans, according to international news reports.

https://kathmandupost.com/money/2023/10/04/5g-trials-in-disarray-as-geopolitics-enters-scene