{"id":3777,"date":"2019-05-25T07:48:05","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T07:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csrskabul.com\/en\/?p=3777"},"modified":"2019-06-10T06:56:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T06:56:57","slug":"afghanistans-telecommunication-historical-background-and-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/?p=3777","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s Telecommunication; Historical Background and Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventeenth of May 2019 coincides with the World Telecommunication Day.\u00a0Telecommunication is one of the most important\u00a0industries\u00a0in the world now a day which connects the world with each other\u2019s,\u00a0from the very beginning of its formation,\u00a0quickly\u00a0grew and\u00a0cross the borders\u00a0frequently.\u00a0This phenomenon was also on the right track but\u00a0the rapid growth in the Afghan\u00a0civil war in Afghanistan\u00a0was highly vulnerable\u00a0and its infrastructure was destroyed.\u00a0After\u00a02001,\u00a0the communications industry in our country\u00a0revived\u00a0and\u00a0developed and expanded\u00a0rapidly again.\u00a0Afghanistan\u00a0is\u00a0among the leading countries in the region,\u00a0in\u00a0the field of\u00a0communications.\u00a0The weekly report of center is all about telecommunications, opportunities and challenges in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Historical background<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The journey of Afghanistan in the world of telecommunication and relation began with the installation of a Simdarmanul telephone at the Palace of the ARG of Kabul in 1898.\u00a0In 1908, a small telephone system with a capacity of 25 lanes was installed to the north of the ARG.\u00a0Telegraph services was another type of telecommunication facility launched in Afghanistan in 1914.\u00a0At the same time, the station was installed in\u00a0Kabul with capacity of 20 kilowatt,\u00a0connecting\u00a0Kabul to Paris via the first radio.\u00a0The first automatic telephone machine was 1200 Lane and was purchased from the Tesla Company of Czechoslovakia, which was opened at the former headquarters of the Ministry of Telecommunications located at the Poll-e-baghe Umami.\u00a0In 1955, the center automation system was activated with the help of Ziemens West Germany company with a capacity of 5,000 Lines.\u00a0Later, in 1967, the machines of the Kart-e-char and Shahr-e-naw, each with a capacity of 3,000 lines, were assisted by the West Germany and by their specialists.<\/p>\n

In the next step,\u00a0Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Kandahar machines were installed at 1,500 lanes each, followed by automatic machines of the Kheirkhana and Makrarian, each with a capacity of 3,000 lines in 1977 with the help of the West Germany;\u00a0But with\u00a0the Soviet invasion of\u00a0Afghanistan and the refusal of German specialists to travel to our country, its work was half-finished.\u00a0After sometimes, the rest work was completed and started the operation by Afghan specialists led by Engineer Mohammad Shakir Taher.\u00a0In the mid-1970s, basic telecommunication services, including telephone and telegraph services,\u00a0were\u00a0available\u00a0at the level of districts and in the local places.\u00a0Although\u00a0the telecommunication\u00a0system\u00a0mostly limited to some parts and agency of the government, local people had also limited access to these\u00a0services.<\/p>\n

In 1983 and 1984, Grassbar devices were installed in the cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, Parwan, Pul-e-Khumri, Sheberghan and Kunduz.\u00a0In the 1980 and 1990 there were\u00a0Political-social instability and war intensities destroyed not only the infrastructure and wealth of Afghanistan, but also destroyed and exhausted many of the telecommunication systems.\u00a0In recent years of the sovereignty of the People’s Democratic Party, in most of the districts and villages there were no facilities of telecommunication systems in the country.<\/h2>\n

New development stage<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Since 2001, the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology has been among the first Afghan agencies to arrange public sector policies and strategies for the telecom sector so that the company\u00a0and private offices to invest in the telecommunications sector and to deploy telecommunication systems.\u00a0Since then, Afghan wireless, Roshan,\u00a0MTN, Wasal Tilcom,\u00a0Etisalat and Public Networks such as Afghan Telecom and Salam started their operation after each other\u2019s.\u00a0These companies, which were invested a huge amount of capital, quickly developed in close competition.\u00a0Today, more than 90% of the geography of the country is covered by the telecommunications network.\u00a0According to some statistics, the number of SIM cards distributed around\u00a0the\u00a0country\u00a0reached\u00a025\u00a0million,\u00a0which brings the number of mobile telephone\u00a0(mobile)\u00a0active in the country, will be from 15 to 17 million.<\/p>\n

Challenges\u00a0Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With the rapid growth of telecommunications sector, especially in the mobile phone network, there are challenges\u00a0also\u00a0in telecom sectors\u00a0that prevent the implementation of policies and plans of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and prevent a balanced growth of telecommunications in the country.\u00a0The most important challenges are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Security<\/strong>:<\/strong>Security is one of the key factors that shield all areas of social life, including telecommunications and information technology.Protecting existing systems and developing\u00a0new telecommunications\u00a0systems\u00a0in remote areas without security is impossible.\u00a0Also, the expansions of the fiber optic network throughout Afghanistan depend on security.\u00a0This cable, which should be connected to neighboring countries for access to the high-quality Internet, has slowly extended and has been cut and destroyed after being renewed.\u00a0Such as threats against the Northwest, Central and Southern fiber project that eventually terminated the contract.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One of the factors increase the rate of telephone conversations as well as the phenomenon of insecurity that telecom companies have to secure their communications\u00a0antenna by hiring security guards and bear additional costs which would be given extra cost.\u00a0Also, in some areas, telecommunication antenna (BTS) were under attack by the opposition and destroyed or their activities are discontinued.\u00a0Local armed groups and local militants are delaying the implementation of telecom projects and their implementation in remote areas.\u00a0The lack of security in many parts of the country is an obstacle to the construction of roads.\u00a0The lack of roads in difficult traffic, the implementation of fiber optic projects and the lack of roadways for the transfer of telecommunication equipment in some parts of the country has also led to the lack of coverage of all parts of the country by the telecommunications network.\u00a0Distribution of non-registered SIM cards has in turn caused security problems.\u00a0This neglect has caused social, political and criminal problems, such as threats, abductions, murders\u00a0and harassment of women.\u00a0In addition, the lack of development of wired telephones, with only 356 thousand lines active throughout the country, in addition to other factors, is due to the collapse of the infrastructure of the system during the civil war.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Corruption:<\/strong> The\u00a0lack of capacity and the existence of corruption have led to the downfall of the Ministry of Communications\u2019 losses from mobile phone companies.\u00a0To make\u00a0in total, these companies have approximately $ 3.5 billion in annual sales, as each phone has an average monthly cost of $ 9.\u00a0According to this measure, the company’s revenues for the Ministry of Telecommunications alone are about $ 600 million annually.\u00a0While this is not the case, the Ministry of Communications annually receives only a third of this amount, which is about $ 200 million in taxes from companies.\u00a0Meanwhile, people are dissatisfied with the 10% tax that comes directly from prepaid cards and are not sure if this amount will be delivered to the government budget.\u00a0While this amount is estimated to reach $ 300 million annually, is it really transmitted to the government transparently or somehow are taken by others, According to officials of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the private telecom companies are not paying the tax to government but the obligation to pay financial penalties of their\u00a0own,\u00a0are also delayed.<\/li>\n
    2. The high rate of conversations and customer\u2019s abuse<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Telecommunication services with significant advances in Afghanistan are still priced higher than in the region and low quality services.\u00a0Afghanistan is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, and almost 50% of the population is below the poverty line, so that all citizens of the country cannot use it because of the higher rates.\u00a0Another reason for the high rate of abuse of telephone conversations free market system is that companies conversations rates in coordination with one another, according to their own liking\u00a0maintained\u00a0at\u00a0a high\u00a0level\u00a0And, unfortunately, the Ministry of Telecommunications does not play a role in controlling the call rates.\u00a0A common complaint\u00a0is that the credit is\u00a0stealing\u00a0from the SIM cards\u00a0or without the need and permission\u00a0the packages (which each require additional costs) are activated to them.\u00a0In some cases, packages like\u00a03G\u00a0And\u00a04G\u00a0which are sold to customers on the basis of banners and advertising, is lower than the claimed quality.<\/p>\n

      Recommendations: <\/strong><\/h2>\n

      In order to improve the telecommunication situation in the country, it is necessary to implement the following suggestions:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • The Ministry of Communications must conduct a careful study and setting up of healthy competition, costs and prices of telecommunication networks and the price of the Internet must be reduce for all Afghan people, especially for those poor people with less\u00a0money in hand,\u00a0needs to have access for communication through mobile and internet.<\/li>\n
      • Cooperation should be between Ministry of Communications and telecommunication companies to cooperate and coordinate with each other\u2019s, to keep balance of price and quality service to ensure customers satisfaction and on the other hand to don\u2019t lose government revenue.<\/li>\n
      • The tax system for telecommunications companies must be based on tax-regulations of government and corruption free to don\u2019t waste of government revenue.<\/li>\n
      • As we know that most of the profits of telecommunication companies are running to foreign countries, Government must implement SIMDAR telephones to prevent flow of capital from our country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Seventeenth of May 2019 coincides with the World Telecommunication Day.\u00a0Telecommunication is one of the most important\u00a0industries\u00a0in the world now a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[774],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-3777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recent_analysis","tag-slideshow"],"views":31,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3778,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3777\/revisions\/3778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}