Here’s good news for Apple phone users. Nepal Telecom (NT) has made 4G (fourth generation) service available to Apple phone users after fixing technical issues. 

Even after 4G service was opened to postpaid and prepaid subscribers, people using Apple phones could not switch to the upgraded network due to procedural delays between NT and Apple.

“4G service is now available to Apple iPhone 6, 6 Plus, Seven and Seven Plus handset users,” NT said in a statement. It said that the service was compatible with iPhone 5. 

According to NT, US-based Apple said that it would make 4G network compatible with all Apple handsets from March. “However, our persistent communication with Apple yielded results as the company made 4G service available by introducing a beta version,” the state-run telecom giant said. Apple phone users need to download an application from Apple’s website beta.apple.com, NT said. Users have been advised to make a data backup before downloading the software. After that, they should go to the handset’s general settings, open software update and download the beta version. 

NT customers can subscribe to 4G service by dialing *444#. According to the company, more than 50,000 postpaid users in Kathmandu and Pokhara have switched to 4G network since the service was launched for them on January 1. 

The company expects the number of prepaid subscribers upgrading to 4G to rise faster as there are more of them than postpaid users. NT has opened 4G service in Kathmandu and Pokhara in the pilot phase.

The telecom giant has upgraded 308 of its Base Transceiver Station (BTS) towers in the Kathmandu Valley and 25 stations in Pokhara to launch 4G service. The upgraded network allows consumers to use data at speeds of up to 32.4 Mbps. The company aims to eventually raise the speed to 100 Mbps. 

The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), regulator of telecommunications sector, has authorised NT to offer 4G service with a bandwidth of 5 Mhz from the 1800 Mhz frequency band. NT has asked the regulator for another 5 Mhz bandwidth to increase the speed to 100 Mbps. Once the pilot phase is completed, NT aims to launch the service in 15 municipalities in the first phase. 

According to the latest report prepared by the NTA, NT has 13,536,114 GSM subscribers. The report states that the company has 7,504,457 internet service users using GPRS, EDGE and WCDMA technologies. There are 13.74 million internet service subscribers using these technologies across the country, according to the NTA’s data.