Information and Communication Technology

A farmer in Jumla checks the price of apples on a phone, a student in Biratnagar joins an online class, and a mother in Dubai sends money home to Syangja through a mobile wallet. All three are using information and communication technology (ICT): computers, phones and networks working together to move information from one place to another in seconds. This lesson explains what ICT is made of, the technologies that carry our messages, the services of the Internet, how Nepal uses ICT in government, banking and education, and why some people are still left out.

11.1 ICT: meaning, components and uses

Recall from Lesson 1 that data are raw facts (marks 78, 64, 91) and information is processed data that has meaning (the class average is 77.7). ICT turns data into information and then delivers that information to the people who need it, wherever they are.

Components of ICT

An ICT system has six parts. Remove any one of them and the system stops working.

Component	Meaning	Example: checking the SEE result on a phone
Hardware	the physical devices	your smartphone, the NEB web server, mobile towers
Software	the programs that run on the hardware	Android, the web browser, the result website
Data	the facts that are stored and processed	your symbol number and the grades stored for it
Network	the communication links that carry data	4G mobile data or home Wi-Fi, and the Internet
People	those who use and run the system	you, and the staff who enter and check the results
Procedures	the rules and steps to follow	open the site, type the symbol number and date of birth, press Submit

Uses of ICT

ICT is now part of almost every kind of work.

Field	How ICT is used	Example in Nepal
Education	online classes, digital textbooks, e-libraries, results	Sikai Chautari lessons, SEE results online
Health	patient records, telemedicine (a doctor treats a patient over a video call), test reports by SMS	a hospital in Kathmandu advising a health post in Humla
Banking and trade	mobile banking, digital wallets, online shopping	eSewa, Khalti, connectIPS, Daraz
Government	online services, records, complaints	Nagarik App, online passport form, Hello Sarkar
Agriculture	weather forecasts, crop advice, market prices	price and weather alerts on a farmer's phone
Communication	calls, SMS, chat, e-mail, social media	Viber and WhatsApp calls to relatives abroad
Transport and tourism	online tickets, maps, hotel booking	bus and flight tickets booked from a phone
Disaster management	early warnings, rescue coordination	flood-warning SMS to people living near rivers
Entertainment	music, films, games, news	YouTube, online FM radio, live cricket

11.2 Communication technologies: telephone, mobile, radio, television, satellite and the Internet

Communication technology is the equipment and method used to send a message from a sender to a receiver over a distance. Every one of them needs a sender, a medium (wire, radio waves, light in a fibre) and a receiver. Some carry messages only one way (broadcast: radio, television); others carry them both ways (two-way: telephone, mobile, Internet).

Telephone

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Its microphone turns the voice into an electrical signal, which travels along copper wire (today often optical fibre) to a telephone exchange; the exchange connects it to the line of the person being called, whose earpiece turns the signal back into sound. A telephone fixed to a wire at home or in an office is a landline. In Nepal, landlines are provided mainly by Nepal Telecom.

Mobile phone

A mobile phone uses radio waves instead of a wire. The land is divided into small areas called cells, and each cell has a mobile tower (base station) at its centre. Your phone talks only to the nearest tower. The tower passes the call through cables, optical fibre or a microwave link to the mobile exchange, which sends it to the tower nearest the person you are calling. When you travel, the call is handed from one tower to the next without breaking. That is why it is called a cellular network.

Mobile phones have come in generations: 2G carried voice and SMS, 3G added mobile Internet, 4G made the Internet fast enough for video, and 5G is faster still with almost no delay. In Nepal, Nepal Telecom started GSM mobile service in 1999, the first private operator (Mero Mobile, now Ncell) began in 2005, and Nepal Telecom launched 4G on 1 January 2017.

Radio

Radio sends sound through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to any number of receivers. It is one-way: listeners can hear but cannot reply through the same set. A radio is cheap, needs little electricity and reaches villages that have no Internet, which makes it very important for news, weather and disaster warnings. AM (amplitude modulation) stations reach far; FM (frequency modulation) stations give clearer sound over a shorter distance, and Nepal now has hundreds of local and community FM stations. Radio Nepal was established on 20 Chaitra 2007 BS (2 April 1951).

Television

Television (TV) sends both moving pictures and sound. It reaches homes in four ways: through an antenna on the roof (terrestrial TV), through a cable from a local operator, from a satellite to a small dish on the house (DTH, direct to home, such as DishHome), or over the Internet (IPTV and streaming apps). Nepal Television (NTV) made its first test broadcast on 17 Magh 2041 BS (30 January 1985).

Point	Radio	Television
What it carries	sound only	moving pictures and sound
Cost of a set	very low	higher
Power needed	very little; works on batteries	more; needs a screen
Reach in remote areas	very wide	narrower
Example in Nepal	Radio Nepal, community FM	NTV, DishHome channels

Satellite

Many communication satellites are in geostationary orbit, about 35,786 km above the equator. Up there a satellite goes round the Earth once a day, exactly as fast as the Earth turns, so it seems to stay still in the sky, and a dish on a roof can point at it without moving. Satellites carry TV channels (DTH), satellite phones, Internet to remote places through small dishes called VSATs, weather pictures, and the location signals used by GPS maps. Nepal's first satellite, NepaliSat-1, a 1.3 kg research satellite with a camera, was launched on 18 April 2019 (Nepal time) under the BIRDS-3 project.

The Internet

The Internet is the worldwide network of computer networks that all follow the same rules for sending data (TCP/IP). It carries every other kind of message too: e-mail, voice and video calls, radio and TV programmes, and bank payments. You will study how it is built in Lesson 14. In Nepal, the first commercial e-mail service began in 1994 and the first Internet service provider (ISP) in 1995; today the Internet reaches homes through optical fibre, Wi-Fi and 4G mobile data.

Technology	What it carries	Medium	Direction	Example in Nepal
Telephone (landline)	voice	copper wire or fibre	two-way	Nepal Telecom landline
Mobile phone	voice, SMS, data	radio waves to towers	two-way	Nepal Telecom, Ncell
Radio	sound	radio waves	one-way	Radio Nepal, community FM
Television	pictures and sound	antenna, cable, satellite or Internet	one-way	NTV, DishHome
Satellite	TV, phone, Internet, GPS	radio waves through space	both	DTH television, VSAT Internet
Internet	all kinds of data	fibre, cables, Wi-Fi, mobile	two-way	fibre and 4G Internet

11.3 Internet services: WWW, e-mail, search engines, chat, video conferencing and cloud storage

An Internet service is a particular use of the Internet. The six below are used every day.

World Wide Web (WWW)

The World Wide Web is the huge collection of web pages stored on web servers all over the world and joined by hyperlinks. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, near Geneva, in 1989. You open web pages with a web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari) by typing their address (URL) or clicking links. You met web pages, websites and URLs in Lesson 10.

The Internet	The World Wide Web
a worldwide network of networks: the cables, devices and rules	a collection of linked web pages that runs on the Internet
carries every service: web, e-mail, calls, chat, file transfer	is only one of those services
began in 1969 as ARPANET	began in 1989 at CERN
like the roads of a country	like the vehicles of one company that use those roads

E-mail

E-mail (electronic mail) is a way of sending written messages, with files attached if needed, from one computer or phone to another through the Internet. Every user has an e-mail address of the form username@domain, for example ramesh.thapa@gmail.com: the part before @ is the user's name and the part after it is the mail server. Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo Mail are common e-mail services. Mail is sent from server to server using the SMTP protocol.

Part of an e-mail	Use
To	the main receiver(s)
Cc (carbon copy)	people who receive a copy; every receiver can see their addresses
Bcc (blind carbon copy)	people who receive a copy secretly; the other receivers cannot see these addresses
Subject	a short title telling what the mail is about
Body	the message itself
Attachment	a file sent with the mail: a photo, a PDF, a document

E-mail is fast, almost free, can reach many people at once, keeps a written record, and can carry files; but it needs the Internet, can bring spam (unwanted mail) and fake mails that try to steal passwords (you will meet phishing in Lesson 12).

Search engines

A search engine is a website that finds web pages about the words you type, called keywords. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo are examples. A search engine works in three steps: its programs (called crawlers) visit billions of pages; it stores the words of each page in a huge index, like the index at the back of a book; and when you search, it ranks the matching pages and shows the most useful first. You can search more exactly by putting a phrase in "quotation marks", by adding site: (for example SEE result site:gov.np) or filetype:pdf.

Chat

Chat (instant messaging) is the exchange of short text messages, voice notes, photos and stickers in real time: the other person sees them at once and can reply at once. Apps such as Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram also allow group chats and free voice and video calls over the Internet.

Video conferencing

Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and the free, open-source Jitsi Meet are common tools. Schools held classes this way during the COVID-19 lockdown, doctors use it for telemedicine, and offices use it for meetings that would otherwise need long journeys. Good manners in an online meeting are the same as in a classroom: join on time, keep the microphone muted while others speak, and raise your hand (there is a button for it) before speaking.

Cloud storage

Google Drive gives 15 GB free (shared with Gmail and Google Photos), OneDrive 5 GB and Dropbox 2 GB. Your files are safe even if your phone is lost, and a group can work on one file together; but you need the Internet to reach them, and you must trust the company with your data and protect the account with a strong password.

Service	What it does	Examples
WWW	lets you read linked web pages	websites of NEB, schools, news
E-mail	sends written messages and files	Gmail, Outlook
Search engine	finds web pages by keywords	Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo
Chat	sends instant messages, voice notes and calls	Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger
Video conferencing	live meeting with sound and video	Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Jitsi Meet
Cloud storage	keeps files online, reachable from anywhere	Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox

11.4 ICT in Nepal: e-governance, online banking and digital payments, e-learning

In 2019 the government adopted the Digital Nepal Framework, a plan with eight sectors (digital foundation, agriculture, health, education, energy, tourism, finance and urban infrastructure) and 80 projects to bring services online. Three areas affect students most.

e-Governance

Type	Between	Example in Nepal
G2C — government to citizen	government and people	Nagarik App, online passport form, SEE and NEB results online, Hello Sarkar complaints
G2B — government to business	government and companies	online company registration, filing tax online with the Inland Revenue Department, e-bidding
G2G — government to government	between offices	ministries and municipalities sharing records

The Nagarik App, launched in full on 2 May 2021 (2078 BS), puts a citizen's records in one place on the phone: citizenship, PAN, voter details, driving licence, police clearance report and more, and it lets people pay some taxes and send complaints. Each online service saves a journey and a queue, and a citizen can track an application instead of asking for it again and again.

Online banking and digital payments

Online banking lets customers use their bank account without visiting the bank: internet banking on a website, mobile banking in the bank's app, SMS banking, and ATMs for cash. A digital wallet is an app that holds money and pays bills and shops from a phone: eSewa (Nepal's first, from 2009), Khalti (2017) and IME Pay are examples. QR payment lets a customer pay by scanning a shop's printed code, and Fonepay is a network that links many banks and wallets for such payments. connectIPS, run by Nepal Clearing House, sends money directly from one bank account to another. All these companies work under licences from Nepal Rastra Bank.

e-Learning

e-Learning is learning with the help of ICT: online classes, recorded video lessons, digital textbooks, quizzes and online libraries. In Nepal, the government's Sikai Chautari portal has lessons and textbooks for grades 1 to 10, OLE Nepal offers the interactive E-Paath lessons and the E-Pustakalaya digital library, and many schools give homework through Google Classroom. A student can replay a lesson as often as needed, but needs a device, electricity, the Internet and self-discipline.

11.5 Advantages and disadvantages of ICT; the digital divide

Advantages of ICT	Disadvantages of ICT
fast, cheap communication across the world	needs money for devices, data and repairs
information on any subject at any time	false news and rumours spread quickly
services from home: banking, bills, government papers	cyber crime: hacking, fraud, cyber bullying (Lesson 12)
new jobs and online businesses	some old jobs disappear
better education and health care in remote areas	addiction to games and social media; less exercise
saves paper, travel and time	loss of privacy; personal data can be misused
help in disasters: warnings and rescue coordination	electronic waste and electricity use harm the environment

The digital divide

The 2021 census of Nepal shows the gap clearly. Of the 6,666,937 households counted, 37.8% had an Internet facility and only 15% had a computer or laptop, although about 73% had a smartphone.

Causes of the digital divide in Nepal: devices and data packs cost money; hills and mountains make it hard and expensive to lay cables and build towers; some villages still have weak electricity; many older people never learnt to use a computer; much online content is in English rather than Nepali or local languages; and people with disabilities may need special devices.

Ways to reduce it: cheaper data and devices; more towers and fibre in rural areas; community ICT centres and free Wi-Fi in schools, libraries and ward offices; computer classes for adults; more content in Nepali and local languages; and accessible devices and websites. Local people can make a difference too. From 2001, Mahabir Pun linked the mountain villages around Nangi in Myagdi to the Internet with home-made dish antennas and Wi-Fi relay stations; his Nepal Wireless Networking Project won him the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2007.

Chapter summary

• ICT is the use of computers, telecommunication equipment, networks and software to collect, store, process, send and receive information.
• Its six components are hardware, software, data, network, people and procedures.
• Communication technologies: telephone (voice over wire), mobile (radio waves to the tower of each cell), radio (one-way sound), television (one-way pictures and sound), satellite (uplink and downlink; geostationary at about 35,786 km) and the Internet (a network of networks that carries everything).
• Nepal's milestones: Radio Nepal 1951, NTV 1985, e-mail 1994, first ISP 1995, GSM mobile 1999, 4G 2017, NepaliSat-1 2019, Nagarik App 2021.
• Internet services: WWW (linked web pages; not the same as the Internet), e-mail (To, Cc, Bcc, attachment), search engines, chat, video conferencing and cloud storage.
• ICT in Nepal: e-governance (G2C, G2B, G2G; Nagarik App), online banking and digital payments (eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay QR, connectIPS; never share an OTP or MPIN) and e-learning (Sikai Chautari, E-Paath).
• The digital divide is the gap between those who have devices, the Internet and the skill to use them and those who do not; in 2021, 45.7% of urban but 21.5% of rural households had Internet.

Practice questions

Group A — Objective (1 mark each)

1. ICT stands for [1]aInformation and Computer TechnologybInformation and Communication TechnologycInternet and Communication ToolsdInternational Communication Technology
2. Which of these is NOT a component of an ICT system? [1]adatabprocedurecnetworkdfurniture
3. A radio broadcast is an example of [1]aone-way communicationbtwo-way communicationcvideo conferencingdcloud storage
4. The area served by one mobile tower is called a [1]anodebcellcdomaindrouter
5. The signal sent from a ground station up to a satellite is the [1]adownlinkbuplinkchotspotdbackbone
6. Radio Nepal was established in [1]a2007 BSb2041 BSc2051 BSd2063 BS
7. Which Internet service keeps your files on a company's servers so that you can open them from any device? [1]achatbsearch engineccloud storagedWWW
8. Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo are [1]aweb browsersbsearch enginesce-mail servicesdoperating systems
9. In an e-mail, the addresses that other receivers cannot see are written in [1]aTobCccBccdSubject
10. The Nagarik App is an example of [1]ae-commercebe-governancece-learningdsocial media
11. Which of these is a digital wallet of Nepal? [1]aKhaltibZoomcGmaildViber
12. The gap between people who can use ICT and those who cannot is the [1]adigital footprintbdigital dividecdigital signatureddigital payment
13. In the 2021 census, about what percentage of Nepali households had an Internet facility? [1]a15%b37.8%c72.9%d95%

Answers to Group A

1. (b) — information and communication technology.

2. (d) — the six components are hardware, software, data, network, people and procedures.

3. (a) — listeners receive but cannot reply through the radio.

4. (b) — each tower serves one cell; hence "cellular" network.

5. (b) — up is the uplink; the signal coming down is the downlink.

6. (a) — 20 Chaitra 2007 BS (2 April 1951).

7. (c) — e.g. Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox.

8. (b) — they find web pages by keywords; browsers only open pages.

9. (c) — Bcc means blind carbon copy.

10. (b) — it is a government-to-citizen (G2C) service.

11. (a) — Zoom is video conferencing, Gmail is e-mail, Viber is chat.

12. (b) — the digital divide.

13. (b) — 37.8% (2,514,510 of 6,666,937 households).

Group B — Short answer (2 marks each)

1. Define ICT. Name any four components of an ICT system. [2]
2. Write any two differences between radio and television. [2]
3. What is a communication satellite? Write any two uses of satellites. [2]
4. Differentiate between the Internet and the WWW. [2]
5. What is video conferencing? Name two programs used for it. [2]
6. What is cloud storage? Write one advantage and one disadvantage of it. [2]
7. What is e-governance? Give two examples of e-governance in Nepal. [2]
8. Name any two digital payment systems of Nepal and write one safety rule for using them. [2]
9. What is the digital divide? Write any two ways to reduce it. [2]
10. A 600 MB video is uploaded on a 40 Mbps connection. Find the shortest time the upload can take. [2]

Answers to Group B

1. ICT is the use of computers, telecommunication equipment, networks and software to collect, store, process, send and receive information. Components (any four): hardware, software, data, network, people, procedures.

2. Radio carries sound only, while television carries moving pictures and sound. A radio set is cheap and runs on batteries, so it reaches remote villages; a TV set costs more and needs more power. (Any two.)

3. A communication satellite is a machine in orbit that receives signals from a ground station (uplink), strengthens them and sends them back to a wide area of the Earth (downlink). Uses (any two): satellite TV (DTH), satellite phones, Internet in remote places (VSAT), GPS navigation, weather forecasting.

4. The Internet is the worldwide network of computer networks — the cables, devices and rules — and carries every service. The WWW is a collection of linked web pages that is only one service running on the Internet; e-mail and video calls use the Internet without using the Web.

5. Video conferencing is a live meeting over the Internet in which people at different places see and hear each other at the same time using cameras and microphones. Programs (any two): Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Jitsi Meet.

6. Cloud storage is a service that keeps your files on a company's servers on the Internet so that you can open and share them from any device. Advantage: the files are safe even if your phone or computer is lost (or: they can be opened anywhere and shared). Disadvantage: you need the Internet to reach them (or: your data is held by another company, so privacy depends on its security).

7. e-Governance is the use of ICT by the government to give services and information to citizens, businesses and its own offices. Examples (any two): the Nagarik App, the online passport form, SEE and NEB results online, online tax filing with the Inland Revenue Department, the Hello Sarkar complaint service.

8. Any two of eSewa, Khalti, IME Pay, Fonepay QR, connectIPS, mobile banking. Safety rule: never tell anyone your OTP or MPIN (or: use only the official app, keep the phone locked, check the amount and the receiver before confirming).

9. The digital divide is the gap between people who have devices, the Internet and the skill to use ICT and people who do not. Ways (any two): cheaper data and devices; more towers and fibre in rural areas; community ICT centres and free Wi-Fi in schools and libraries; computer classes for adults; content in Nepali and local languages.

10. 600 MB × 8 = 4,800 Mb. Time = 4,800 ÷ 40 = 120 seconds = 2 minutes.

Group C — Long answer (4 marks each)

1. What is ICT? Explain any three uses of ICT in Nepal with an example of each. [1+3]
2. Describe any four communication technologies, giving an example of each from Nepal. [4]
3. Explain any four services of the Internet. [4]
4. Write any four advantages and any four disadvantages of ICT. [2+2]
5. What is the digital divide? Explain its causes in Nepal and suggest two ways to bridge it. [1+2+1]

Answers to Group C

1. ICT is the use of computers, telecommunication equipment, networks and software to collect, store, process, send and receive information (1 mark). Uses (any three, 1 mark each): Education — online classes, digital textbooks and results; e.g. Sikai Chautari lessons and SEE results published online. Banking — mobile banking and digital wallets let people pay and send money from a phone; e.g. paying a shop with Khalti or eSewa by QR code. Government (e-governance) — services without queues; e.g. the Nagarik App for citizenship, PAN and police reports. Health — telemedicine lets a doctor in a city advise a health post by video call. Agriculture — farmers get weather forecasts and market prices on their phones. Communication — free calls and chat with relatives abroad through Viber and WhatsApp.

2. (Any four, 1 mark each.) Telephone (landline): turns the voice into an electrical signal that travels by wire through an exchange to the other telephone; two-way; e.g. a Nepal Telecom landline. Mobile phone: uses radio waves to the tower of its cell, and the towers are joined through the mobile exchange; carries calls, SMS and data; e.g. Nepal Telecom and Ncell. Radio: sends sound by radio waves from a transmitter to many receivers; one-way, cheap, reaches remote villages; e.g. Radio Nepal (2007 BS) and community FM stations. Television: sends moving pictures and sound by antenna, cable, satellite or the Internet; e.g. NTV and DishHome. Satellite: receives signals from a ground station (uplink) and sends them back to a wide area (downlink); e.g. DTH television and VSAT Internet in remote areas; NepaliSat-1 (2019) was Nepal's first satellite. Internet: the worldwide network of networks that carries all kinds of data; e.g. fibre and 4G Internet.

3. (Any four, 1 mark each.) WWW: a collection of web pages joined by hyperlinks, opened in a browser; e.g. the NEB website. E-mail: sends written messages and attached files to an address such as name@gmail.com; To, Cc and Bcc fields; e.g. Gmail. Search engine: finds web pages by keywords, using an index of the Web; e.g. Google. Chat: real-time text, voice notes and calls; e.g. Viber, WhatsApp. Video conferencing: live meetings with sound and video among people in different places; e.g. Zoom, Google Meet. Cloud storage: keeps files on Internet servers so they can be opened and shared from anywhere; e.g. Google Drive (15 GB free).

4. Advantages (any four, half a mark each): fast and cheap communication worldwide; information on any subject at any time; services from home (banking, bills, government papers); new jobs and online businesses; better education and health care in remote areas; saving of paper, travel and time; help in disasters. Disadvantages (any four, half a mark each): cost of devices and data; spread of false news; cyber crime such as hacking and fraud; loss of some jobs; addiction and health problems; loss of privacy; electronic waste.

5. The digital divide is the gap between people who have access to ICT — devices, the Internet and the skill to use them — and people who do not (1 mark). Causes in Nepal (2 marks): the cost of devices and data; difficult hills and mountains where towers and cables are costly to build; weak electricity in some villages; lack of computer skills, especially among older people; most content is in English. The 2021 census showed Internet in 45.7% of urban but only 21.5% of rural households. Ways to bridge it (1 mark, any two): cheaper data and devices; more towers and fibre in rural areas; community ICT centres and free Wi-Fi in schools and ward offices; computer classes for adults; content in Nepali and local languages — as Mahabir Pun's Nepal Wireless Networking Project did for the villages of Myagdi.