Nepal Telecom (NT)'s mobile services—including voice, data, SMS, and recharge features—have suffered 22 major disruptions over the past 18 months, totaling nearly 29 hours of downtime. According to internal documents, the state-owned telecom giant’s current billing system, provided by Chinese company AsiaInfo and in use for 12 years, is failing to handle the growing volume of users. Technicians estimate that this outdated infrastructure is also causing an annual revenue leakage of up to 10%.
The crisis peaked in 2025 with 17 distinct outages, including a single day in June when services crashed three times, and a massive 7-hour and 40-minute network failure on June 30. The technical vulnerabilities have spilled into 2026, with five additional system crashes recorded so far this year, leaving millions of subscribers frequently stranded without network access.
Timeline of major disruptions (2025–2026)
The system vulnerabilities first severely manifested early last year when the billing platform failed under peak user load on January 7 and 8, 2025, causing network outages that lasted up to two hours. A few months later, on March 31, 2025, users experienced two separate disruptions—one lasting 5 minutes in the morning and another for 15 minutes in the afternoon.
The instability escalated significantly in June 2025. On June 10, the network crashed three separate times: first at 10:55 am for 45 minutes, then at 1:00 pm for 5 minutes, and again at 3:05 pm for another 45 minutes. Later that month, on June 30, Nepal Telecom suffered its longest recorded breakdown when the system crashed at 11:50 pm, leaving services entirely offline for 7 hours and 40 minutes.
The frequent outages continued into the latter half of the year and into the next. On September 25, 2025, the company faced a total network blackout during both the midnight and afternoon hours, resulting in two outages lasting 4.75 hours and 45 minutes, respectively. Another major midnight crash occurred on December 22, 2025, knocking out services for 5 hours.
The technical crisis has spilled directly into 2026. Repeated system failures were recorded on January 6 and 13, causing midnight and afternoon network blackouts that lasted 2 hours and 1 hour and 15 minutes respectively. The most recent disruption occurred just over a week ago on May 7, 2026, resulting in a brief 5-minute network outage.
Procurement controversies and tender cancellation
The persistent network failures are directly linked to Nepal Telecom’s inability to upgrade its infrastructure due to a highly controversial procurement process. Nepal Telecom initially called for a new billing system tender worth approximately Rs 5 billion in March 2025. By August, NT disqualified Chinese firm Whale Cloud, leaving telecom giant Huawei as the sole qualified bidder for the financial evaluation.
However, the process faced immediate criticism for lacking competitive fairness, with allegations that the tender specifications were tailored to favor a specific company. Amid political shifts and the appointment of Communications Minister Jagdish Kharel, a high-level probe committee led by former Secretary Mani Ram Gelal was formed to investigate the matter.
The probe committee concluded that the tender violated the Public Procurement Act, actively choked fair competition, and manipulated technical specifications to benefit a single vendor.
Following the committee’s damning report, Nepal Telecom officially canceled the entire 5-billion-rupee tender on January 18, 2026.
Current status
While the cancellation aimed to curb corruption, it has inadvertently benefited the incumbent vendor, AsiaInfo, as NT is forced to continue running on the failing system.
When questioned about the delay in restarting the procurement, Nepal Telecom's spokesperson, Rabindra Manandhar, stated that the entire billing project is currently undergoing an internal review. "We cannot specify an exact date for the new tender publication yet. A technical team is reviewing the specifications to align with modern requirements and ensure a clean, transparent procurement process moving forward," Manandhar said.
According to Telecom technicians, the existing billing system causes a 10% annual loss in revenue. This system flaw reportedly costs the company over 3.5 billion rupees annually. According to the latest data from the regulatory Nepal Telecommunications Authority, the telecom has 683,000 3G and 14.5 million 4G customers.
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