On May 3, home broadband customers all over Nepal had significant downtime for around five hours, as internet service providers (ISPs) couldn’t pay bandwidth fees to the company that controls much of the country’s access to the global internet: Bharti Airtel Ltd. A tax dispute between Nepalese ISPs and the country’s government, brewing for months, led to a situation where ISPs’ requests for permission to buy US dollars to pay Airtel stalled, with one executive estimating collective outstanding dues to Indian bandwidth providers at Rs 200 crore.
The ISP Association of Nepal (ISPAN) held a press conference in Kathmandu the day before, and warned mediapersons that the long delay in payments would lead the landlocked country to lose all internet access. Sudhir Parajuli, ISPAN’s president, told The Hindu in a telephonic interview from the US that Airtel caters to around 80% of Nepalese ISPs’ bandwidth needs, with the rest largely served by Tata Communications Ltd, and two small connections from China.