Mobile data vs home fibre after the hike: is a Ncell or NTC data pack now cheaper in Nepal?

A cousin of mine moved into a single room in Dillibazar for his master's last month. The landlord's WiFi is shared by six rooms and dies every evening. His own fibre would now cost at least Rs 815 a month. His phone already has a Rs 799 Ncell pack with unlimited calls and 200 GB of data.

He asked whether he needs fibre at all. For him, the answer is no. For his parents back home in Pokhara, four people on one connection, the answer is the opposite.

The mobile packs that compete with fibre

Most mobile packs are too small to replace home internet. These are the 30-day packs big enough to be a real alternative, from Ncell's packs page and NTC's package page. Both say their prices include tax.

Rs per GB is my arithmetic, assuming you use the whole allowance.

Two cautions. NTC's daily packs reset every day, so a heavy Saturday cannot borrow from a quiet Tuesday. And NTC's page carries these under a Monsoon Offer 2083 heading with no end date shown, so check the price before you buy.

The trend has been in buyers' favour. Ncell cut its unlimited data and voice pack from Rs 1,999 to Rs 699 in April 2026. That pack now has a 50 GB fair-usage cap, but the Rs 799 tier above it carries 200 GB.

What fibre costs now

Home internet got more expensive at the bottom. From Asoj 19, ISPAN members stopped selling plans below 50 Mbps, as covered in why your WiFi bill just went up.

The NT price and fair-usage limit are from NTC's FTTH tariff page. The private prices are from Clickmandu's 5 October report. None of these comes with a clear tax label, so treat them carefully:

• Clickmandu reported in September that TSC and 13% VAT are billed on top of NTA-approved ISP tariffs.
• WorldLink's own plan pages say TSC is included in the internet charge and VAT is extra. On that basis, Rs 950 becomes Rs 1,073.50 with VAT (my arithmetic).
• The Kathmandu Post put the new 50 Mbps minimum at "about Rs1,100 to Rs1,200 before tax", higher than Clickmandu's figures.

The honest range for private 50 Mbps fibre is roughly Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 a month once VAT is in. Ask for the final amount before comparing.

New connections also carry one-time costs. NT charges Rs 500 for installation on single-year plans, and its router (Rs 2,825 for single band) is free only with a new one-year connection. A mobile pack needs nothing but the phone you already have.

The comparison that actually matters

Comparing a phone pack with a fibre bill is unfair, because almost everyone needs a phone pack anyway. The real question is what each household pays in total.

Here is the arithmetic for three households, using NT FTTH's Rs 815 as the cheapest fibre and Ncell's Rs 449 Super Value pack (7 GB, unlimited calls) as the smallest phone pack someone on fibre would still carry.

All totals are my arithmetic. With a private 50 Mbps plan at about Rs 1,075 including VAT instead of NT's Rs 815, the two-person case tips further toward mobile and the four-person case narrows to about Rs 325 in fibre's favour.

The four-person row also understates fibre. Four Rs 799 packs give 800 GB between them, but each person is stuck with their own 200 GB. One NT FTTH line allows 50 GB a day for the whole house before slowing to 5 Mbps.

Will 200 GB actually last a month?

It depends on the screen. Netflix's help page puts streaming at up to 1 GB an hour in standard definition, up to 3 GB in HD and up to 7 GB in 4K.

My arithmetic, at Netflix's maximum rates. A phone screen rarely needs HD, so a single person who mostly streams on the phone is closer to the SD column.

The most recent public usage figure I could find is old. Ncell's average customer used about 4.5 GB a month in Q2 2023, according to Axiata results relayed by Nepalitelecom. Usage has surely grown since, but a 200 GB pack is still many times that.

What eats a cap fast is a laptop. Operating-system updates, game downloads and cloud photo backups do not care that you are on a hotspot. Neither operator's pack page says anything about hotspot limits, so test tethering on a cheap daily pack before cancelling a fibre line.

Speed and reliability

Fibre is faster. How much faster is hard to pin down, because nobody publishes a reliable national mobile figure.

• Ookla's Speedtest Global Index for August 2026 puts Nepal's median fixed broadband at 88.96 Mbps down, ranked 92nd. It lists Nepal's mobile speed as "N/A".
• NTC's own drive test in Bharatpur in Asar 2082 measured an average 4G download of 27.98 Mbps, against NTA's minimum standard of 10 Mbps. That is one city, tested by the operator itself.

For video calls and phone streaming, 4G at those speeds is enough. What decides it is the signal inside your room. A basement flat in a Kathmandu gully can turn a good network into a bad one. Run a speed test in the room where you actually sit, at 9 pm, before switching.

Most Nepalis already rely on mobile. NTA's Shrawan 2083 MIS report counts 27.7 million mobile broadband subscriptions against 3.55 million fixed broadband connections, so mobile accounts for 88.56% of all broadband subscriptions.

Are mobile prices next?

Nothing published so far points that way. The Supreme Court case decided on Asoj 6, 2083 was about fixed-broadband ISPs billing half of each bill as maintenance to keep it outside the 10% telecom service charge. WorldLink's CEO said the result would push fixed broadband prices up at least 50%. None of the coverage mentions mobile data. The full tax story is in the Rs 30 billion tax bill post.

Mobile packs are sold with tax already inside the price. The fixed-broadband hike, if NTA ever approves it, would widen the gap in mobile's favour for small households.

Who should switch

• Students and single renters with decent indoor signal: drop fibre, keep one Rs 799 pack. The saving is about Rs 465 a month against NT fibre plus a small phone pack, or roughly Rs 5,600 a year (my arithmetic). That is a meaningful line in a first-salary budget.
• Couples: close to even. Mobile wins on paper, but if either of you works from home on a laptop, fibre's daily allowance is worth the Rs 115.
• Families of three or more: keep fibre, and move each person to the smallest phone pack they need. Four people on unlimited mobile packs is the expensive option.
• Anyone already on an annual fibre plan: don't cancel mid-term, since refunds are rare. Decide at renewal. The 12-month prepay post covers whether to renew annually.

What you actually need to know

For one person, a Rs 799 mobile pack with 150 to 200 GB and unlimited calls now costs less than fibre plus a phone pack, and the gap widens if fixed broadband rises again.

For three or more people, fibre stays cheaper, because one line serves everyone and NT's 50 GB-a-day limit is far above any phone pack.

Test indoor signal and hotspot use before you cancel anything.

Found a better pack, or a fibre quote that changes the math? Send it to parjanya57@gmail.com.

This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the save-the-gap section.