NEPAL: Telecom employees resume protest against service suspension

As planned, Nepal Telecom workers resume their protests against the government's ban on pre-paid mobile phone services

Nepal News
Sunday, August 21, 2005

AsiaMedia Editor's Note: Reports are unclear as to whether the lifting of the state of emergency on April 30 allows for press freedom, and thus Nepalnews may still be operating under the directives of King Gyanendra.

Nepal Telecom (NT) employees Sunday resumed their protests against the suspension of prepaid mobile phone services even after the completion of prepaid lines.

The Nepal Telecom Employees’ Union staged two-hour-long sit-in protest in front of the Director General’s office at Bhadrakali, Kathmandu, this morning. The employees warned of halting all works at the Telecom if the prepaid mobile phone services were not resumed by August 27.

They also demanded that the NT deny inter-connection and inter-link services to private telecommunication companies unless its services resume fully.

The government had disconnected all mobile phone services on Feb 1 when King Gyanendra sacked the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government and assumed direct power. Postpaid mobile phones had partially resumed in Kathmandu a couple of months ago.

Until Feb 1, the NT had distributed 242,000 mobile phone lines including 174,000 prepaid lines across the country.

Date Posted: 8/21/2005