Bye-bye dial-up. Bye-bye slow surfing. Bye-bye paying two bills to Nepal Telecom and to the ISP.

Here comes cable net: a system that allows you to use your existing tv cable to receive both television as well as internet. How is it different from the dialup system? "The speed says it all," explains Sudhir Parajuli of Subisu Cablenet, which is introducing the system in Kathmandu. "Because of the broadband used by the cable net, the speed is 64kbps, which is double the speed of a dialup system."

Parajuli says his cable internet come out cheaper for frequent internet users. "Under the dialup system, if you use the internet for an hour a day, you end up paying around Rs 2,350 a month including your telephone and internet bills. With the cable net system, you pay Rs 2,515 you get to use it all the time and get a whole lot of television channels as a bonus."

After beginning business as a cable television service in 2001, Subisu applied for a cable internet license which it finally got last year. Space Time Network and Pokhara Cable

Service also got licenses, but Subishu has got first off the mark. Subisu already has one fourth of Kathmandu covered with its cable system and in the first week of launch it already had 120 subscribers to its cable internet.

"Most of them are offices," explains Subisu's Amit Thapa. The cable company can also make tv sets work as internet-enabled computer monitors with a remote keyboard. But that will put you back Rs 20,000 or so. "Right now the price seems expensive for our clients," admits Parajuli. "But if you add up present cable and internet costs you actually end up saving money." (Navin Singh Khadka)