Telecom Billing Bypassed to Run Blocked Data Service, Loss of 5 Million by Running It Free for Non-Pack Users

Kathmandu: It has been found that Nepal Telecom bypassed its billing system to keep data service running when the service was disrupted on Tuesday. After the system failed to handle the sudden increase in traffic on the Telecom network, the company bypassed billing and continued the data service.

Telecom technicians have not yet identified why the system received excessive requests. Nepal Telecom’s data service was disrupted nationwide from 5:15 pm on Tuesday. Telecom’s data went into inactive mode across the country from 5:15 pm. Even by 7:30 pm, Telecom technicians could not detect the problem in the module known as OCS in technical terms.

Telecom then decided to bypass the billing system and run the service. This made Telecom’s data free across the country. Data on the smartphones of Telecom users who did not buy a data pack remained free until 11:30 pm. According to Telecom sources, the company lost Rs 5 million while 200 TB of data was consumed after bypassing billing.

Telecom’s public service was disrupted from 5:15 to 7:30 pm, and Telecom lost all its revenue from 7:30 to 11:30 pm. “Since the data service itself was disrupted, the service had to be restored anyway. For that, excess traffic was routed by bypassing billing. Users who had a data pack were charged from their pack. However, the balance of users without a data pack was not deducted while using data. From 7:30 to 11:30 pm, users who used mobile data from their main balance were not charged a single rupee. The reason behind the outage is still unknown,” a Telecom technician told TechPana.

According to the source, Tuesday’s data outage was caused by Telecom’s outdated architecture and hardware. “There are two reasons for the issue: the billing system and the PS core. The PS core is the packet-switched core network. It manages mobile data in the cellular network. There seems to be no other reason besides these two. Either the problem was in data service or the billing system. The initial analysis is that yesterday’s issue was caused by the billing system,” the source said.

In 2025, there has been five disruptions in the telecom network. On February 4, the telecom network was down nationwide. Then there was an outage on July 28. On September 25, the telecom network failed from 1 pm to 6 am. The same day, the network was down again nationwide from 9:30 am.

In 2024, there were 17 network issues caused by the old billing system. Since 2011, Telecom has been using the billing system of Chinese company Asia Info. As that system is outdated, Telecom services have been repeatedly disrupted.

Telecom invited bids to purchase a new billing system on March 18, 2025. Huawei Technologies and Whale Cloud submitted bids.

Telecom issued a notice on August 31, 2025, declaring only Huawei technically qualified and opened the financial bids on September 15, 2025. However, citing unfavorable conditions due to the Gen-Z movement, Telecom issued a notice on September 15 and rescheduled the opening of the bids for September 24.

At that time, on September 22, Jagdish Kharel was appointed Minister of Communications. Two days later, on September 24, Telecom postponed the date, time, and venue for opening the financial bids until further notice, citing special circumstances.

 

After questions were raised about the bidding process, Minister Kharel formed a committee led by former Secretary Maniram Gelal to conduct a study. The committee concluded that there were shortcomings in the bidding process and improvements were needed. So far, Telecom has not opened the financial bids for the contract.

 

पछिल्लो अध्यावधिक: मंसिर १८, २०८२ १२:६

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