Urja Khabar
KATHMANDU; The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has asked the providers of various services to manage the cable television, internet, telephone wires and equipment that are stretched on the electric poles in their possession within 45 days.
Issuing a public notice on Tuesday, the NEA has set the standards for the structure to be placed on electric poles for telecommunication, TV and Internet services and has asked the service providers to manage them according to the standards.
The notice states that the city looks unattractive due to electrical poles and unnecessary optical fibers and equipment hanging randomly and stretched haphazardly on cable poles that are not in use. Electrical accidents including fire are increasing. Furthermore, due to this, the electrical services provided by the authority have also been disrupted.
Manoj Silwal, Deputy Managing Director of Distribution and Customer Service Directorate, said they have requested the concerned to build/manage their structures within the deadline. “Citing to minimize electrical accidents including fire and provide reliable electricity service and maintain urban beauty, telecommunications, cable TV and internet service providers, we have come up with the measure.”
According to Silwal, the authority will remove them by itself and the related service provider should be responsible for the loss that may occur due to this.
The NEA has specified the minimum distance between the optical fiber/cable and the power line and the ground surface. The minimum distance between bare and insulated wires and cables of 400 volts should be 80 and 30 cm respectively. The minimum distance between 11 kV and 33 kV lines and cables should be two meters. The minimum distance from other 400 volt devices should be 75 cm between the optical fiber cable and the ground surface, 2.4 meters on footpaths and 5.5 meters on roads. It is prohibited to provide service cable connection to customers through service cable without maintaining the minimum distance.
According to the NEA set standards, devices such as routers, optical fiber distribution boxes should be connected to the same part of the pole to prevent it from falling and shaking as well as to be properly wired using clips. Wires and other devices that are not in use should be removed immediately. It has been arranged that the wires placed in loops on the poles should be removed immediately and even when new wires are drawn, loops of extra length should not be made and hung on the poles.
Likewise, service providers should put cable tags on each pole so that they can easily separate their wires. Marking should also be done on the equipment connected to the pole. The service should be extended so that only the single network with as many cores as possible can be shared by the majority of service providers as much as possible. It is prohibited to pull the wires across the road, and the stretched ones should be removed.
The NEA’s move seems to invite the tussles once again between the authority and the service providers. Last year too, the NEA and the internet service providers (ISPs) came heavily upon one another after the state-owned power utility announced to hike the rental charges of its utility poles being used by ISPs.
