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NepalCOMMUNICATIONS, NEPAL
Postal services have been in existence, although
extremely slow
and with limited service, since the Shah and Rana periods.
With the
advancement in transportation systems, however, postal
service also
had improved. In FY 1985, there were 1,868 post offices.
By FY
1990, the number of post offices had increased to 2,232,
but even
the government admitted that access to postal service for
many
Nepalese still was far from satisfactory.
Public telephone services became available but were
limited
during Rana rule. Beginning in the early 1950s, a few
hundred
telephones were installed, mostly for government offices
and
military officers' homes. As of 1989, the number of
private
telephones had increased to over 45,000, and most of the
urban
areas had telephone service. In 1986 there were twenty-six
telephone exchanges; by 1990 there were forty-two such
exchanges.
The number of public call offices during this same period
increased
from twenty-one to seventy-six. International telephone
and telex
services were available, as were facsimile (fax) services.
There
was also a rudimentary radio relay network with
fifty-eight
channels nationwide in 1989. In addition, there still were
fiftyfive point-to-point shortwave stations for telephone
transmission
in 1990.
Radio Nepal, transmitting by shortwave, has been in
existence
since the early 1950s. In 1991 Nepal had six AM broadcast
stations.
Radio was a good source of news and entertainment for many
Nepalese; Radio Nepal, for example, provided about 100
hours of
programming every week. Estimates of the total number of
radio sets
ranged from 600,000 to 2 million in 1989.
In late 1985, television programming began on a small
scale in
Kathmandu. In 1991 total programming was only three hours
daily,
with an additional two hours on Saturday mornings. The
single
station, Nepal Television had a transmitter outside
Kathmandu and
transmitting stations in Pokhara, Biratnagar, and Hetauda.
The
programs of foreign television organizations, such as the
Cable
News Network, also could be received by a satellite dish
in Nepal.
There were approximately 200,000 television sets in 1991,
and in
some areas the government provided television sets for
community
viewing.
Data as of September 1991
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