Customers of Nepal Telecom (NT) are making more telephone calls to foreign destinations as they have become cheaper. The company saw a 12.87 percent growth in outgoing international calls in January compared to the same month last year.

Cheaper call rates, an increase in the number of telephone users and more Nepalis living outside the country have been cited for growth by NT officials. According to the Management Information System (MIS) report of the company, a total of 15.25 million calls (42.03 million minutes) were made during January this year compared to 13.51 million calls (35.81 million minutes) in January 2013.

India, the US, Australia, the UK, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are some of the major call destinations that receive a huge number of calls from Nepal. Arjun Ghimire, deputy director at the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), said that the trend of outgoing calls from the country had increased due to cheaper call rates and services reaching rural areas. “It is cheaper to call a relative or friend living outside the country than receiving a call from there,” he added.

As an impact of the growth in outgoing calls, the number and duration of incoming calls to NT users has also come down. The report states that against 25.81 million incoming calls (101 million minutes), the company took a total of 22.10 million calls (91.89 million) during January this year.

Even as there is a decline in the total number of international incoming calls, the average minutes talk/call time stand at 4.16 minutes against 2.76 minutes for outgoing calls, according to the report. NT’s access code such as 1424, 1425 and 1445 allow the company’s customers to make calls to different countries at comparatively cheaper rates. A customer calling the US or Canada by dialling the access code 1424 can talk for Rs 1.75 per minute against the normal charge of Rs 30 per minute for calls made using the access code 00, according to the tariff of NT. 

Meanwhile, the company’s outgoing calls through the budget call service via 1425 and 1445 access codes have also come down. NT customers made a total of 13,056 calls (17,717 minutes) in January this year using these codes against 141,093 calls (229,594 minutes) in the same period last year. 

An NT official said that the total calls through the budget call service might have declined as the call rate through the access code 1424 was much cheaper. It costs Rs 6 per minute to call India using the access codes 1425 and 1445 while the charge is Rs 2.90 per minute for using the access code 1424 that uses the internet protocol (IP) connectivity for international calls.  With prices for telecom services coming down significantly due to fierce competition, other companies like Ncell and United Telecom Limited are also providing international calls at cheaper rates. The NTA said that the outgoing tariff could decline in the coming years due to an increase in the use of data 

services to make calls via applications like Viber, Skype and WhatsApp.