KATHMANDU, DEC 31 - 2012
The government gearing up to sign a contract with South Korea’s ICRAFT Company for the execution of the South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Information Highway Project.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB)-supported project will link Nepal with India, Bangladesh and Bhutan through an optical fibre network.
The Ministry of Information and Communications issued a letter of acceptance (LoA) to the Korean firm on December 25.
In a tender invited by the ministry, ICRAFT had quoted the lowest bid of $ 1.94 million for the project. Two Chinese firms—Anhui Communications Services and ZTE Communication—had quoted $3 million and $3.51 million, respectively. Another Chinese firm Sichuan Qingfeng Communications had also proposed to undertake the project, but its proposal was rejected during preliminary evaluation as its bid security validity period was not sufficient.
Ministry officials said the work on the project will begin within the next month. “We have given a 28-day time to ICRAFT to submit performance bond and sign a contract,” said Sushil Ojha, spokesperson for the ministry.
The SASEC project has focused on three components—setting up cross-border regional connectivity with a backbone bandwidth capacity of 10 Gbps; making ICT accessibility in rural communities; and operating a resource and training centre. The project will open 30 community e-centres in rural areas, besides a research and training centre for development of ICT in the country.
The planned cross-country fibre link will help reduce the cost of using data and voice services. It is also seen as the best way to avoid dependency on satellite connections for communicating with countries around the world. As per the government target, the project is scheduled to be completed within the 8-10 months after the signing of the contract.
Under the project, the government will install an optical fibre link of more than 500km (skipping sections where fibre links have been laid by Nepal Telecom).
It will provide an alternate backbone route in Nepal for establishing cross-border connectivity through Cable Landing Station (CLS) in Rani, Biratnagar, by connecting to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) network in Jogbani, India, and another CLS in Birgunj connected to Raxaul, India.
About seven months ago, Nepal Telecom, on behalf of the government, had signed a contract with BSNL, Bangladesh Telecom Company and Bhutan Telecom to establish bilateral interconnections by building a fibre link. As per the government’s decision, the ministry will implement the project and hand it over to Nepal Telecom for operation and maintenance.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
The government gearing up to sign a contract with South Korea’s ICRAFT Company for the execution of the South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Information Highway Project.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB)-supported project will link Nepal with India, Bangladesh and Bhutan through an optical fibre network.
The Ministry of Information and Communications issued a letter of acceptance (LoA) to the Korean firm on December 25.
In a tender invited by the ministry, ICRAFT had quoted the lowest bid of $ 1.94 million for the project. Two Chinese firms—Anhui Communications Services and ZTE Communication—had quoted $3 million and $3.51 million, respectively. Another Chinese firm Sichuan Qingfeng Communications had also proposed to undertake the project, but its proposal was rejected during preliminary evaluation as its bid security validity period was not sufficient.
Ministry officials said the work on the project will begin within the next month. “We have given a 28-day time to ICRAFT to submit performance bond and sign a contract,” said Sushil Ojha, spokesperson for the ministry.
The SASEC project has focused on three components—setting up cross-border regional connectivity with a backbone bandwidth capacity of 10 Gbps; making ICT accessibility in rural communities; and operating a resource and training centre. The project will open 30 community e-centres in rural areas, besides a research and training centre for development of ICT in the country.
The planned cross-country fibre link will help reduce the cost of using data and voice services. It is also seen as the best way to avoid dependency on satellite connections for communicating with countries around the world. As per the government target, the project is scheduled to be completed within the 8-10 months after the signing of the contract.
Under the project, the government will install an optical fibre link of more than 500km (skipping sections where fibre links have been laid by Nepal Telecom).
It will provide an alternate backbone route in Nepal for establishing cross-border connectivity through Cable Landing Station (CLS) in Rani, Biratnagar, by connecting to the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) network in Jogbani, India, and another CLS in Birgunj connected to Raxaul, India.
About seven months ago, Nepal Telecom, on behalf of the government, had signed a contract with BSNL, Bangladesh Telecom Company and Bhutan Telecom to establish bilateral interconnections by building a fibre link. As per the government’s decision, the ministry will implement the project and hand it over to Nepal Telecom for operation and maintenance.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
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