Kabulis Get Mobile

The trill of mobiles is becoming an increasingly common sound on the streets of Kabul as rival networks fight for customers.

“Merry Christmas” and “It’s A Wonderful World” are among the tunes ringing out from the phones, which were banned until less than two years ago.

However, as the necessary SIM cards cost between 50 and 135 US dollars in a city where the average monthly wage is around 40 dollars, not many ordinary Kabulis are going mobile just yet.

Mohammad Mustafa, a student in south Kabul, told IWPR the cost was worth it given the state of the local phone service. “To get a [fixed line] telephone you have to contact the communications ministry about a month before anything happens,” he said. “Even then, there have been cases where a single line has been given to three customers.”

Mohammad Gul, a shopowner in the west Kabul suburb of Charahi Qambar, agrees, grumbling that he has given up on fixed lines because “the communications ministry makes promises but does nothing”.

Indeed, after years of neglect and war damage - which included US bombs knocking out a large transmitter in Kabul in 2001 - the country’s telecommunication systems lie in tatters.

The authorities put the number of fixed lines in the capital, still by far the best served part of the country, at just 39,000 - 27,000 analogue and another 12,000 digital.

But estimates on the BytesforAll technology website put the number as low as 12,000 functioning phones, in a city whose population has swollen to several million following the recent return of refugees.

Years of conflict mean that there has never been anything resembling a truly national network. Direct international calls only became possible in 2000 during the time of the Taleban, which maintained a strict ban on mobile and satellite phones for fear that they could be used to undermine it.

After the regime fell, however, it did not take long for them to put in an appearance, and the first mobile phone call was made on April 6, 2002, on the Afghan Wireless Communications Company, AWCC, network, a joint venture between the communications ministry and an American firm.

Operations have now expanded to the provinces of Herat, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif, and 35,000 customers are said to have signed up.

But it has not all been plain sailing, as the network is frequently overloaded. Kabul newspaper cartoons often feature callers vainly trying to contact people sitting right next to them.

Moneychanger Haji Ahmad Shah Hakimi says he needs to make regular calls around the world to find out the latest exchange rate, but “whenever we have an urgent call, its says to try again later”.

AWCC spokesperson Mohammad Naim Haqmal admits that such problems exist but said that new equipment from Germany will be in place next March to help tackle them.

Mobile network competition arrived in Afghanistan at the end of July in the form of Roshan, a company 51 per cent owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development.

It currently operates only in the capital, but such is the intense rivalry that for several weeks phone-users could not call between the two networks - making the choice between AWCC and Roshan a hot topic of conversation among the well-heeled.

However, for those who do not have the money for mobiles there are some signs of hope.

Communications ministry official Baryalai Hissam told IWPR that there are plans to improve internet and fax facilities and provide more public phones in six provinces.

Most ambitious of all is a venture being undertaken with a Chinese company, which plans to install tens of thousands of digital phone connections around the country by the end of the year.

There is, however, a certain amount of cynicism, with one official – who did not want to be named – telling IWPR, “The ministry’s building doesn’t function – it has no power, water, sanitation or working elevators. If the telecommunications centre has not been refurbished after two years, how do they expect to rehabilitate the provinces?”

Hafizullah Gardesh is an IWPR reporter and Danish Karokhel is an IWPR editor/reporter in Kabul. IWPR training assistant Abdul Saboor Niazi contributed to this report.