Nepal Telecom has upgraded its existing ADSL service to 5 Mbps on February 9th of 2018. This is the company’s 14th Anniversary gift to people. NTC ADSL 5 Mbps package is a free upgrade for all existing users. Previously Nepal Telecom was providing 1 Mbps broadband service for Rs 1000/month. The 5 Mbps speed upgrade actually came into action on February 11. We have tested the new upgraded service and it is 5 Mbps on Speed Test as well. However, there are a few things that many users need to know regarding speed upgrade, local content, speed, and cache servers.
NTC is trying hard to cope with the competition of private ISPs these days. The speed war and competition are very fierce but it has been growing for a long time. Nepal Telecom upgraded its 192 Kbps service to 384 Kbps about a year ago. Then within a short duration, the package was upgraded to 1 Mbps for the same price.
Also Read: NTC ADSL Internet Packages, Price, Offers
At first, NTC was serving three unlimited packages for ADSL users and they are 128 Kbps, 256 Kbps, and 512 Kbps service. After a few years, the packages became 192 Kbps, 384, Kbps, and 512 Kbps. The company also provided special 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps service just a few years ago at a very high price. As the competition of private ISP drove up, NTC started losing lots of customers. Then the company upgraded their basic ADSL speed to 256 Kbps then 1 Mbps and now it is 5 Mbps.
NTC ADSL 5 Mbps Speed Test and Experience
From February 9th of 2018, Nepal Telecom is providing 5 Mbps at Rs 1000/month for all customers. Previously when the package was 1 Mbps we actually got 2 Mbps service. It was stated on NTC’s site that local content will be served at 2 Mbps. After the new upgrade, our ADSL Modem plus Router also shows Data Rate as 5120 Kbps downstream and 513 Kbps upstream. This is an ideal state which means we are not affected by issues such as distance from the exchange or line attenuation. You can also check network and line status by logging into your ADSL router.
In our test using SpeedTest.net, we tried many servers in Nepal and India. Tests with NTC, Worldlink, and Subisu servers showed a download speed of average of 4.3 Mbps or 526 KB/s. The average upload speed was 0.40 Mbps. Servers of a foreign country or far land showed different results. Indian servers showed higher ping, and the download speed was down to 2.5 Mbps but the upload speed was the same 0.4 Mbps.
Also Read: NTC ADSL Problem, Connection Issue Troubleshooting
We tested YouTube, P2P service, social media sites, and more. Popular YouTube videos ran smoothly at 1080p and 720p without any issue. Other videos also run fantastic at 480p quality. YouTube Video downloads also occur at 500 KB/s average of 5 Mbps. Videos on Facebook, Twitter also stream smoothly without interruption. Files and software downloads from popular sites were at 220 KB/s and the same was the case with P2P file sharing using BitTorrent.
Nepal Telecom’s FTTH as the Future
Both high speed and speed differences are mainly due to local cache servers in Nepal. NTC installed the first YouTube cache server a few years back in Nepal. Such servers help people get access to the content of popular sites fast and also save bandwidth costs to companies. We found that surfing sites, browsing social media, watching YouTube are fabulous with the new NTC ADSL speed upgrade. The speed is 5 Mbps as told by the company but contents in the farther location are slow by a few quarters.
As a normal user, it is a great improvement but still, there is a long way to become a leader. Movies and shows stream smoothly on Netflix and Amazon Prime. The downtime is absolutely zero since 2017 for my connection. However, in the case of private ISPs, they give far superior speed options that are incomparable to NTC. This is great for people who have high bandwidth demand and need more speed for less price. So the company definitely needs to work more on that part.
Related: Nepal Telecom ADSL to NTC FTTH Migration Guide
In this age, the whole world is moving to optical fiber in name of FTTH. Nepal Telecommunication Authority is also demanding Nepal Doorsanchar Company Ltd. to do so. NTC FTTH fiber expansion is happening but slowly. The upgrade is appreciable but now we want to see their service in FTTH in a much better and more reasonable package. It is sure that this old technology with copper wire is going to be replaced by a much-advanced FTTH system very soon.
