Nepal Telecom to lay 2,216 km of fibre in Gandaki and Lumbini

What happened

The agreement was signed in Kathmandu by NTA chairman Arjun Ghimire and Nepal Telecom managing director Sangita Pahadi (Aryal). Communication Minister Bikram Timilsina attended. The money comes from the Rural Telecommunication Development Fund (RTDF). Telecom companies and internet providers pay into this fund, and it is used to connect rural and unconnected areas. The contract gives Nepal Telecom three years, but the minister asked for the work to be finished one year early.

Nepal Telecom will hang about 2,028 km of fibre on poles and bury 188 km underground. It will also install 28 dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems and five routers. The new network is meant to give reliable connections to 194 local levels and to link 432 mobile base station sites. The project, called the Information Highway, is split into three packages that together cover all seven provinces. Gandaki and Lumbini form the second package.

NepaliTelecom gives progress on the other packages. In Package 1, which covers Koshi, Madhesh and Bagmati, about 1,449 km had been laid out of a 2,179 km target, and the Koshi part is complete. In Package 3, for Karnali and Sudurpashchim, 799 km had been installed. The NTA admitted delays in some areas and asked Nepal Telecom to speed up without lowering quality.

This corridor has a long history. In August 2025, NepaliTelecom reported that the project had been in the works for about ten years. United Telecom Limited (UTL) was first given the job but could not carry it out. Bhupendra Bhandari, the NTA chairperson at that time, said that earlier fund projects given to UTL and Smart Telecom were never launched. A similar NTA and Nepal Telecom agreement for this corridor was also reported in August 2025, and the October 2026 reports do not explain how the two agreements relate.

The engineering behind it

Optical fibre carries data as pulses of light inside a thin glass strand. As general knowledge, light in fibre loses very little strength over long distances and is not disturbed by electrical noise or lightning. This makes fibre the standard choice for backbone links between towns. Aerial fibre, hung on poles, is faster and cheaper to install in hills. Buried fibre is better protected from storms, landslides and accidental cuts, but digging costs more.

DWDM is what lets one fibre carry a very large amount of traffic. In general, it sends many separate light signals, each on a slightly different wavelength, through the same strand at the same time. A DWDM system at each end combines and separates these colours of light. The 28 DWDM systems in this project will sit at key nodes along the route, while the five routers direct internet traffic between the regional network and the national backbone.

Field work on a fibre route follows a standard process. Engineers survey the route, choose pole and trench sections, and plan where joints and spare cable loops will go. Technicians splice fibre ends by fusing the glass with an electric arc. Each section is then tested with an optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR), which sends light down the fibre and shows where losses or breaks occur. Remote sites also need steady power, often with batteries or solar backup.

The split between aerial and buried cable in this project is uneven. About 92 percent of the planned length, 2,028 of 2,216 km, will hang on poles. In general, aerial routes in hills face risks from falling trees, landslides, vehicles hitting poles and storms, so operators plan spare fibre and alternate paths. A ring design, where traffic can flow around a break in the other direction, is a common way to keep sites online when one section is cut.

What it means in Nepal

A mobile tower is only as good as its link to the rest of the network. When a tower in a hill district has a weak backhaul, users see a 4G signal but get slow data. Connecting 432 base station sites to fibre is meant to fix that bottleneck for those sites. NepaliTelecom says the network should support e-governance, telemedicine, online learning and digital payments, and later 5G service. NepaliTelecom also reports that Nepal Telecom is likely to launch 5G in about a year, and 5G sites need even more backhaul capacity than 4G sites.

For the RTDF, the project is a test of whether money collected from operators can turn into working rural networks. Earlier attempts in this corridor did not deliver, so the pace of the next three years will be watched closely. The contract also sets a clear target the public can check: kilometres laid, sites connected and local levels served.

For students, the project shows the full range of telecom work. Some of it is outdoor and practical: route survey, cable laying, splicing and testing. Some of it is in the network room: configuring DWDM channels, setting up routing, and monitoring links. Engineers who understand both sides can read a fault report from the field and trace it to the right part of the network.