The Supreme Court (SC) of Nepal allowed the state-owned Nepal Telecom (NT) to operate its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)-based basic telephone lines Monday, senior official at NT said here Tuesday.

"The CDMA services, based on the latest wireless technology, will be made available to the public as soon as possible. They were halted following an 'erroneous' SC interim order in July 20, 2005," Sugat Ratna Kansakar, managing director of NT, told reporters.

A consumer, on July 4 last year, filed a petition seeking the interim order arguing that NT was not capable of providing the service, Kansakar noted, adding, "The services were initially scheduled to come into operation in Kathmandu by November last year."

Around 250,000 phone lines will be made available in the first phase across the country including Kathmandu Valley, central Narayani zone, eastern Janakpur and Biratnagar cities, western Pokhara and Bhairahawa cities and far-western Dhangadi town.

Around 50,000 lines will be available in the valley alone. "The total demand of phones in the valley is estimated at 100,000 while the total demand of phones across the country is around 400,000," Kansakar revealed.

The NT plans to spend 1.83 billion Nepali rupees (26.14 million US dollars) to make available one million lines throughout the country in three phases by 2008, he added.

Source: Xinhua