From 5 October, visitors and residents in Nepal will no longer be able to buy budget internet packages running at speeds below 50Mbps. The country's internet service providers, organised under the Internet Service Providers Association Nepal (ISPAN), have agreed to scrap these entry-level plans entirely.
The reasoning is cost-driven. ISPs say inflation has pushed up the price of the equipment that keeps Nepal online — fibre optic cable and routers in particular — and that selling cheap, slow packages no longer makes financial sense. Rather than raise prices across the board, the providers are cutting the bottom tier of their offerings altogether.
For anyone living or working in Nepal, the change is straightforward: your cheapest available connection will now be at least 50Mbps, presumably at a higher price point than the old low-speed plans. Slower, cheaper options will disappear from ISP menus from that date onward.
For travellers, the practical picture is a bit different. Short-term visitors who rely on local SIM cards and mobile data rather than fixed broadband will mostly be unaffected day to day — mobile packages are a separate market from the fixed-line plans this decision covers. But the move matters if you're staying longer than a week or two, renting an apartment in Kathmandu or Pokhara, or working remotely. Digital nomads and long-stay travellers who previously signed up for a modest, affordable home connection will now find the entry price higher, with 50Mbps as the new floor. The silver lining: connections should be reasonably fast by default, which is good news for video calls and streaming from a guesthouse in the Himalayas.
It's also a signal of where Nepal's connectivity is heading. The country has made real strides in internet access in recent years, and this shift effectively standardises a higher speed baseline nationwide. Travellers who visited a decade ago, when patchy connections were part of the experience, will notice the difference.
If you're planning a trip and depend on reliable internet — for work, family video calls, or uploading photos from the trail — check with your accommodation about their connection before you book. Hotels and guesthouses that already run decent speeds won't feel this change much, but budget places that relied on the cheapest packages may need to upgrade their service, and it's worth confirming they've done so rather than discovering a dead connection after check-in.
The takeaway: from 5 October, slow-and-cheap internet in Nepal is officially a thing of the past. Expect faster connections as standard, at prices that reflect the industry's rising costs.
