After two months, Nepal Telecommunications Corporation has started to distribute prepaid SIM cards for cellular phones. Thousands of subscribers have been rushing to the NTC offices in Jawlakhel since Tuesday to get to the limited supply of cards. NTC plans to distribute 40,000 cards by the end of this fiscal year. As for now, NTC will distribute about 10,000 lines. Preference was given to those customers who own a mobile set. The NTC offices have been packed, with lines that extend from inside the office building out onto the streets of Jawlakhel, exceeding the crowds that had formed when the prepaid cards were first distributed. Up to February, NTC had already distributed about 54,000 lines.

The cost for prepaid call service comes to Rs 1700 including call charge of Rs 500 for sixty days. Meanwhile, there are also rising demands for prepaid service in the eastern region of Nepal where NTC has already stopped distribution as the number of subscribers has exceeded NTC's capacity to provide the service. The over distribution has already caused constant problems for the subscribers, who end up wasting calls because of connection breaks and busy network. The prepaid calls are far more expensive than the postpaid service. Each outgoing call costs Rs 4.68 and Rs 2.34 for incoming calls, about 30 percent more than the calls made with the regular mobile service.