Networking as a Career: Expert Advice

Q. What is the scope of networking career in Nepal?
Talking about networking career, we had earlier limited ISP (Internet service providers) and people less understood about internet but now, since everything is growing in Nepal, there is a paradigm shift as it has become a necessity for every common household from younger to the older generations. If the older generations want to talk to their relatives abroad they can use internet facility. For youngsters they use internet to finish their home assignments. So internet is the network of networks. Hence, we can say networking is very crucial for development of our country. The demand of networking is high so we need networking career in Nepal due to unlimited potentialities.

Q. How many skilled human resource is needed per year? Have you got the skilled manpower for your Company as desired or not?
In terms of requirements of skilled manpower we don’t have precise specifications. In our Company, we need manpower at different levels. We need at beginning level such as customer representative, network administrator at moderate levels and senior network administrators at core and higher levels. So, there are no issues in beginner and moderate level we can hire and groom them. There is problem in core and hire level for getting skilled human resource. We have limited ISPs and core person working in these ISPs which are very limited. We keep track of manpower but we don’t have platform for training to produce skilled manpower. ISP and IT companies have these platforms where people start from beginning and climb higher up to these positions.

Q. Colleges today have many networking courses in their Bachelors and Masters level program those students who have gained knowledge in this field are suitable to work here? If they are not state why?
The courses that we do in college touch the basics of what is done in reality. For e.g. whatever we learn about networking when they implement in real world there are different challenges. While working there are lots of issues practically, this can’t be found in documentation. But these experiences will serve as guideline for implementation phase. Practical knowledge is gained after you land into real platform and explore more from what you have learned at Colleges.

Q. In what areas should student focus more if they want to make career in Networking?
You should start from the basics of networking. For e.g. what is the IP, VPN? There are different branches in Networking. Internet Protocol, transmission and enterprise network. Transmission network use Fibers, DWDM (Dense wavelength division multiplexing), CWDM (Coarse wavelength division multiplexing), multiplexions. In core network we have core routing, switching etc. You should choose and follow a path to have a stable and steady career in Networking.

Q. Can the networking professionals secure their future in Nepal?
They can secure their future because in Nepal infrastructure are well developed. We are doing very well in information technology. In Nepal, people didn’t know about data centers but now we have 4-5 data centers’ where people are doing their job very securely. In Nepal, ISP are growing fast and I think we can secure networking professionals future.

Q. What advice would you like to give Information technology graduates interested in networking career?
You are most welcome to enter this field. Career prospects are good there are many organizations who offer the jobs now days. They can start their career from any point. When they feel comfortable they can choose which way to go and build up their career.

Q. Do networking people work on hardware or they have expertise on software development also?
A networking person should have knowledge on different areas. We use software not only in Computers but also in network device. In Cisco we use IO memory. That is software deriving to make hardware functional. So we need to have knowledge on all areas.

Q. How does World Link operate and how important is networking for this Company?
Now a days we are growing very fast we have 140K active customers in retail segment and customers also in Enterprise network. Through FTTH (Fiber to the home) technology customers are provided internet using fiber networks. We are also doing data connectivity through Enterprise segment. We are fast growing nationally and internationally. The number of customers is also increasing.

Q. What are the products of world Link and what is the latest offering?
Our main focus is to provide internet services. We are focusing on two parts. First is the enterprise and another is the retail. In between, we have the SME packages and FTTH enterprise also. Mainly we are focusing on internet and data connectivity.

Interview of Mr. Rabindra Maharjan
World Link
Lagankhel, Lalitpur