Changing connectivities and renewed priorities: Status and challenges facing Nepali Internet

Abstract

Evidence available after the devastating April 2015 Nepal earthquake (Gorkha earthquake) illustrate uneven coverage and poor data consumption in Nepal in spite of impressive mobile Internet subscription numbers. Places with favourable terrain, higher population densities, and higher income have better connectivity. Online activity levels, on the other hand, do not always correspond with these factors. Overall, ownership of digital technologies and its use exhibit clear regional unevenness and a large urban-rural inequality. These geographical factors reflect differences in socio-demographic characteristics. Unfortunately, in Nepal, dominant discourses on the Internet brush aside these linkages. With deep structural inequalities, a resource-scarce economy, and a track record of poor governance, broadband connectivity will not reduce this development chasm. This paper calls for Nepali Internet discourses to be grounded in reality, detaching from a ‘self-evident’ development vision of connectivity.

If You Build It, Will They Come? Exploring Narratives That Shape the Internet in Nepal

“…Similar rural–urban disparity and uneven geographical diffusion of ICT devices and services is visible in the 2011 nation census. At the district level, cluster analysis by Pandey & Regmi (2018) show access to ICT facilities has a clear geographical pattern. They find there is almost no fixed-internet penetration in thirty-two out of the seventy-five districts.…”

“…Location advantage (proximity to major cities) and favourable terrain are strong indicators of ICT infrastructure and return-on-investment for the service providers. Similarly, locations with the best terrain, higher population density and higher income generally have better 3G site coverage (Pandey & Regmi, 2018). However, not all favourable locations see the number of users and volume of traffic that correlates with these indicators.…”

“…An analysis of the tweets during the Gorkha earthquake of 2015 showed 60 per cent of total tweets originate from the Bagmati zone, which contains the three major urban centres of Nepal, viz. Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur (Pandey and Regmi, 2018). Forty-one per cent of total tweets originate from a single city (Kathmandu) in 2015 and 2017.…”

“…There is also no discussion on whether favourable business environment, strong human capital and good governance are sufficient to assert self-evident claims. The ground realities show that connectivity is disproportionately limited in Nepal, a fact often understated by the simplistic equating of access with subscription numbers (Pandey & Raj, 2016; Pandey & Regmi, 2018).…”

Banking Communications: A Perceptual Study of Customer Relations

“…Similarly, study done by Dharmavaram & Nittala [22] shows banking sector required to find the critical areas of communication and need to pay attention to gain customer satisfaction. Likewise internet banking and mobile banking (Pandey & Regmi, [23]) and structured and effective communication (Ball et al [24]) seems to be promoted by banks which is still lacking between the bank and customers.…”