Deputy managing director of strategic planning, Nepal Telecom: “IMS and Joyn will open up huge opportunities”

Anoop Bhattarai Is Deputy Managing Director Of Strategic Planning For Nepal Telecom

Anoop Bhattarai is deputy managing director of strategic planning for Nepal Telecom and is speaking at the LTE Asia 2012 conference is taking place on the 18-19 September 2012 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Ahead of the conference we speak to him on the main challenges facing him as the company looks to move to LTE.

What are the main challenges you expect to face in the next few years?

I have been appointed co-ordinator of the LTE study and design team in Nepal Telecom and the main challenge will be preparing and deploying LTE between 2013 and 2015 by upgrading our present UMTS, CDMA and WiMAX networks. A pilot LTE project has started in 20 major cities and we have to learn how to market the service with attractive price plans, while making reasonably priced handsets available in the market.

What impact will technologies such as IMS and Joyn have for you?

As the whole communication network is migrating from being voice based to being data based, technologies such as IMS will help leverage the investment that the company has to make [in data]. These technologies will help deliver the communication requirements of the subscribers (voice, picture, videos) in more efficient ways in particular with regard to bandwidth utilisation and QOS, amongst other things. Joyn will a core communication platform for end users and these platforms are developed on top of IP data communication technologies. Thus, as they mature, the combination of technologies such as IMS and Joyn will open up huge opportunities for companies like us.

How important are small cells to your network roll-out plans?

The real high-bandwidth data demand is usually indoors but in these areas the coverage from the outdoor the base transceiver station (BTS) are often not that effective. Therefore the option of having small and dedicated cells focussed on a small group of consumers is usually the best option. Furthermore as various communication delivery and charging models (wifi, 2G, 3G, 4G) can be employed using these small cells, the adoption of small cells will definitely improve the chances of getting a grip on the market. In our deployments, we have already planned to use small cells and will be using the more in upcoming projects

Do you think that VoLTE will have an impact and if so, in what time frame?

Although the trend for voice traffic is decreasing until the day it dies out we have to support voice calls. So we must have support for voice within the framework of LTE through VoLTE and also a handover capability between LTE and WCDMA in both directions. The impact will be clear from the day we deploy the VoLTE with handover capacity.

The LTE Asia 2012 conference is taking place on the 18-19 September 2012 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Click here to register your interest.