As we are moving into the age of online economy, communication channels will play a major role in development of nation's economy. So, it is very important to understand where Nepal is, in terms of the whole online revolution. South-East Asian Countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia are rapidly evolving with the online revolution and giving them important space into the overall growth of the nation.

As per the US Census Bureau, Nepal has a population of 28,951,852 as of 2010 and accordingly to ITU Nepal has 625,800 Internet users as of June, 2010, which is like 2.2 per cent of the population, according to ITU. Now, if we compare this with Malaysia, it has 28,728,607 population (2011) and 16,902,600 Internet users as of June 2009, which is 64.6 per cent penetration, as per ITU. More interestingly, it had around 9,998,440 Facebook (FB) users on March 31/11, which is 34.8 per cent penetration. As per Facebook, Nepal had 811,780 Facebook users on March 31/11, 2.8 per cent penetration. The difference in the penetration of Internet is interesting to observe. The numbers can be a bit contradictory, but FB's user count is very approximate based on the location which cannot be verified. But even then, this does give some amount of insights into the population.

Now, Social Media is already a leading phenomenon in the world, it's a cultural shift between the mainstream media and the free and open community conversation that takes place at the online community forums and platforms such as Facebook. One of the major role social media plays is in the leveraging small and medium businesses, where businesses have direct access to communicate with the customers. So, it is interesting to see how the telecom giants of Nepal are handling this, as they provide the main backbones for the whole revolution.

The picture is quite interesting as it shows that the two major players of telecom in Nepal (NTC and NCELL) have been going in different directions all together. Now, which one is on the right track is not very difficult to figure out. When we talk about online revolution, there is one important thing to consider and that is - how social media friendly is the company. Now, unless telecom companies understand the effect of social media, there is no way that they will be able to drive the required innovation in the field.

In the evolving business models, every company is required to have an online presence and online communication channels, for people to connect with the service. Nepal surely has lots of hurdles to pass through before the Nepali people and companies can leverage the benefits of IT and social media. If you compare NCELL and NTC, you will immediately notice where each one is. NCELL has been heavily adopting latest technology and business models to gain users base, whereas NTC is still in rudimentary stages.

Just to give you an idea on why this is so important for NTC and NCELL, let me explain the basic business models both employ. Both companies earn by sales of SIM cards, the call charges and nowadays even through bandwidth usages. The concept of value added services for mobile devices has still not matured and the same can be said about caller-tunes and other entertainment services. In addition to this, the emerging popularity of Smartphone has provided opportunity to give a variety of services to the end-users. In a competitive market, consumer research report shows that the adoption rate of telecom services is heavily influenced by the service satisfaction, which means a continuous to and fro communication between customer and business. This means a constant presence -- physically and virtually. This is why, online presence is so important. People are continuously looking for information and support.

May be this is why NTC is losing the battle with NCELL. NCELL has been officially declared as the winner the country's first private GSM mobile operator”as the Number 1 player in the GSM mobile segment. The massive branding and investment NCELL has done for last one year is commendable. IT has been aggressive in terms of promoting and coming up with new business models.

Reports say that until last fiscal year, difference between the subscriber base of the two operators NCELL and NT was around 1 million. However, since last fiscal year, NCELL aggressively started introducing new services and handsets targeting both low-end and high-end customers.

Let us just concentrate on how NCELL has been making its presence felt in the online space through social media. The social media presence is all about wearing an attitude to support customers through providing timely information. The websites of NCELL and NTC are both rich in content but NCELL seems to have been communicating with more grace than NTC. The engagement in NCELL is much higher than in NTC. Similarly, NTC doesn't have any online profiles in Facebook, which is where most people are spending their time on.

Beside the contradictory argument that Nepal is still emerging in terms of Online Community, NCELL seems to be doing great with its promotion whereas NTC is still lagging behind the adoption. Being TELECOM companies, NTC and NCELL both must be forerunner into adopting new technology and encouraging new services.

Other interesting examples are Nepal Unites Campaign and Creative Political Activism which are on at Facebook. These activities show the vibes of Nepalese Online Community which if leveraged correctly would benefit companies as well as the nation.

NTC Online Profiles:

Telecommunication was introduced with the installation of open wire trunk telephone line between Kathmandu and Birgunj (a border town in southern Nepal) for the first time in Nepal around 1914, beginning of the First  World War.

Nepal Telecom has been actively involved in the business of physical market place. Its presence in the electronic market space is very minimal while major projects are under planning. Nepal Telecom is highly equipped with country-wide telecom infrastructure which is the competitive advantage for it over the rivals in the industry. Nepal Telecom has implemented IT in customer service rather than in core business. The company has been implementing information technology in customer billing payment. The other IT focuses are on Internal integration of the functional units and managerial planning process. The company has centralized the billing payment and revenue collection.

NCELL Online Profiles:

Until last fiscal year, difference between the subscriber base of the two operators NCELL and NT was around 1 million. However, since last fiscal year, NCELL aggressively started introducing new services and handsets targeting both low-end and high-end customers.

(Sherchan is Chief Marketing Officer at InRev Systems in Bangalore, India. He can be contacted via email at [email protected] or @bexdeep on Twitter.)