Mass broadband outages reported in Nepal

Broadband internet was disrupted in many parts of Nepal on Thursday as Indian vendors from whom most Nepali private operators source the bandwidth stopped providing the services because of payment defaults.

Private internet service providers in Nepal issued notices saying their services were either disrupted or connections were slow. The state-run Nepal Telecom was still continuing to provide internet services.

Two private mobile services operating in Nepal were working, but their internet speed was affected.

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Private ISPs in Nepal haven't been able to pay the Indian vendors for months as the government hasn't provided them foreign currency from the banks to make the payments. The government has been refusing to do so until the private companies clear taxes on certain services they provide.

The private companies say they are exempted from such taxes.

Wlink Communications, the largest ISP in Nepal, blamed the government for the disruption.

"Our upstream provider has disconnected our internal links citing nonpayment," the Wlink notice said. "ISPs in Nepal have not been able to remit such payments as we are unable to obtain permission from the Nepal government for foreign exchange."

There was no immediate comment from the government.