Nepal Telecom (NT) is upgrading its pre-paid lines into a new billing system beginning from tonight that might affect some of the mobile connections.
The telecom company is introducing a convergent real time billing (CRTB) system to allow its customers to conveniently pay all kinds of bills through a single billing platform, said managing director of the public telecom company Buddhi Prasad Acharya.
The new system will make it possible to integrate its different services into a single account and then provide an integrated paying system to users through a common account. The CRTB system refers to a solution used by communication service providers operating multiple services in multiple modes to integrate the services and maintain a single billing platform.
However, the upgradation might affect service of some pre-paid users, said the telecom service provider that is upgrading remaining 3.8 million lines into Convergent Real Time Billing (CRTB) system – tonight – from existing Voucher Management System (VOMS).
All the GSM lines (more than 10 million) will come into CRTB system, after the upgradation.
The upgradation works will be carried out between 11pm on Friday till 4 am on Saturday, he said, adding that the telecom has already informed its pre-paid users that they might face service disruption from 9 pm on Friday till 7 am. “There are chances that some pre-paid users will face problem for a short while during the upgradation process. But it does not mean that our pre-paid lines will stop working.”
Currently, landline (PSTN), mobile service (GSM), CDMA and data services provided by Nepal telecom have individual sales point, customer care service and maintenance service along with payment system that is called multiple silo system.
“It is not possible to introduce service bundling, cross service discount and combined billing system in multiple silo billing system,” he added. “After the upgradation of all GSM lines into CRTB system, the telecom will be able to provide one-window billing system for all services, launch new packages and promotional schemes, service bundling, and cross-product discount services to our customers.”
In the CRTB system, customers using multiple numbers will be combined into single hybrid account through which they can manage different numbers, deposit balance in a single account and transfer balance when needed, and pay bill of different numbers and services. “It will take around two to three months to provide a complete CRTB services to our customers,” Acharya said.
Currently, GSM and CDMA users have to use two different recharge cards to top off their accounts. It can now be done using a single account once the CRTB system goes into effect
According to Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) MIS report of January, currently the Nepse-listed Nepal Telecom has 46 per cent market share with 11.87 million subscribers across the country. It has 9.9 million GSM mobile phone users and 1.18 million CDMA mobile phone users. Likewise, it has 661,210 PSTN or fixed telephone line service and 123,373 WLL service users. In the internet/date, NT has a significant hold with its market share standing at 57.76 per cent. The company has 5.93 million data service users. Of the total, some 5.64 million subscribers, use data through GPRS, EDGE and WCDMA services; some 133,752 use the internet through ADSL and some 136,573 use the internet through CDMA and EVDO service as of January, according to the NTA report.
