Mobile phones an “affordable luxury” in Afghanistan
We sometimes just assume that everyone has a mobile phone. Smartphones are all the rage these days with all family members owning one. It is also natural to assume that everyone else is like us… or are they?
Afghanistan: mobile phones an affordable luxury
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Communication & Information Technology is currently implementing the second wave of its World Bank supported Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Sector Development Project. The project, approved last year, builds on the success of a series of programs and policies that have dramatically changed the telecommunication environment of Afghanistan over the past decade.
ICT development has increased exponentially in Afghanistan since the 2001 US invasion. Due to government policies and extensive foreign investment, the telecommunication network now penetrates an unprecedented percent of the population as well as offering them mobile financial services.
“To say that in a country like Afghanistan we are able to bring world-class products and services, including BlackBerry, mobile money (M-Paisa) and social networking services, is something that we are extremely proud of,” says Karim Khoja, CEO of Roshan, the largest commercial wireless operator in Afghanistan.
There are currently over 17 million mobile phone subscribers and 15,000 Internet users in Afghanistan. By 2016, the ICT Sector Development Project, using the approved $50 million fund, plans to quadruple Internet users, lengthen the fiber optic network to connect most of Afghanistan’s provinces, increasing telephone penetration to 80 percent of the population. Kabul will even soon be launching its first telecommunication satellite and providing 3G Internet capabilities.
“Mobile phones have become the affordable luxury,” Khoja tells MediaGlobal.
17 million mobile phone subscribers is no small number
There is good reason for this. Beyond the government’s need to connect with rural Afghans, studies have shown that a 10 percent increase in mobile phone penetration in the public can have a 0.6 percent impact on GDP. While the Afghan Government is attempting to significantly invest in telecommunication infrastructure to reach out to penetrate into the rural areas, their efforts are dwarfed by the over $1.4 billion that private companies have invested in Afghanistan’s telecommunications network since 2002.
They are stepping up telecommunications network and the mobile phone.
