Afghans gain new mobile network

Roshan was not lacking for early customers

Afghanistan now has two mobile networks, thanks to a new system opened on Sunday in Kabul.

The new network, dubbed Roshan ("light" in the local Pashto language) has been launched by TDCA, a company owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, French telecoms kitmaker Alcatel, Monaco Telecom and the US-based MCT Corp.

The company has had a licence since late last year, but has only now completed preparations and the building of its Kabul network, which uses the GSM standard used by 70% of world mobile subscribers.

The sole current network, Afghan Wireless Communication Co, has a reputation for unreliability, as the Afghan Minister of Communications told BBC News Online in December.

"Capacity is very low, and demand is very high," Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai said.

Roshan has promised to widen its service to include the other main cities - Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kunduz - by January, at a cost of about $55m (£33m).

Price

Proof of the demand came as hundreds of people queued on Sunday for smart cards to put in their handsets for access to the new service.

High prices - at $110 and $135, they are more than twice as expensive as those sold by Afghan Wireless and twice the average monthly salary of a normal worker - discouraged some potential customers.

But Roshan's marketing director, Norbert Prihoda, insisted that they were justified.

Roshan is aiming to sell to ordinary Afghans

"There is a difference between the price and the value," he said. "To set up a GSM network which is working and stable costs money."

Roshan has set itself a target of matching its competitor's subscriber base, which it said was about 40,000 by the end of the year.

Its current capacity is 50,000 users, which it said could be increased to 100,000 relatively quickly.

Foreign demand

In any case, the company is probably well aware that most foreign workers are continuing to use expensive satellite phones because of the unreliability of Afghan Wireless's system.

They at least are well able to afford its prices.

Afghanistan's existing telecoms infrastructure is in tatters after decades of war, with just 26,800 digital lines serving the capital Kabul and the main cities of Herat and Kandahar in a country with a population of around 24 million.

Another 31,900 lines use Afghanistan's creaking analogue fixed network.

There is a third mobile network run by the UN World Food Programme and set up by Sweden's Ericsson, but its use is restricted to humanitarian workers and government officials.