Afghan Wireless Again Creates History in
Afghanistan
Press Release
Source: Afghan Wireless
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 3, 2007 - Afghan Wireless
proudly announces the completion of its high capacity
digital Microwave Ring around the country.
Mr. Ehsanullah Bayat, Chairman of Afghan Wireless,
announced the completion of the country's first ever
Microwave Ring in a grand ceremony at a local hotel.
The event was attended by the country's 1st Vice
President His Excellency Mr. Ahmad Zia, The Minister
of Communications Mr. Sangeen, high officials from the
Chamber of Commerce, AISA and a large number of
dignitaries, parliamentarians and local and
international media personnel.
This is the first Microwave Ring across the country
in the history of Afghanistan, covering a distance of
2,500 Kilometers and millions of dollars of
investment. It passes through 18 provinces providing
direct coverage and connectivity to the population
residing in surrounding areas. The ring ensures
excellent quality coverage to 31 provinces, more than
250 towns, cities, highways and ensures world class
GSM service to the largest customer base in
Afghanistan.
Afghan Wireless Microwave Ring is Afghanistan's
largest network providing Voice and Data interconnect
through high speed terrestrial links. The Afghan
Wireless Microwave Ring connects the North of the
Country in Mazar, Takhar, Badakshan and Kunduz to
Kabul over the Salang, which is further connected in
the South to Kandahar and Spinboldak. The ring further
extends West from Kandahar, passing through Hilmand,
Nimroz and Farah, to reach Herat. It also extends from
Herat to Mazar via Badghees, Faryab and Jawjan
provinces. In the East, the ring connects Kabul to
Jalalabad and the Turkham Border, along with the Kunar
Valley. It also connects Gardez and Khost in the South
East of the country.
The Microwave Ring has also helped in providing
coverage to all major highways connecting Kabul to
Kunduz to Mazar to Herat to Kandahar to Kabul.
Afghan Wireless is the only telecom company
providing microwave connectivity to the Uzbekistan and
Tajakistan borders in the North and to the Pakistan
borders in the South and East. It also connects to the
Iran border in the West. It proudly owns one of the
world's Highest GSM sites at Salang (3980m AMSL). The
ring probably has the longest link of 187km between
Charkend and Qaramqol.
The backbone ring offers immense capacity with a
minimum of STM1 connectivity (155Mbps) and redundancy
while providing connectivity across the country.
Earlier, areas such as Herat were connected over
satellite, which is prone to the inherent delays in
the quality. Afghan Wireless is the only company in
Afghanistan which has connected all major provinces of
Afghanistan over high speed microwave links which are
still not provided by its competitors. The other
operators still use low speed VSAT connections to
provide connectivity among distant regions.
Since most of the country of Afghanistan is covered
with mountains, it is extremely difficult to build a
network based on fiber optics and terrestrial links.
Most operators in the country prefer to roll out
faster, using satellite links to remote locations.
VSAT customers suffer from poor voice quality calls
over the satellite link. Since the satellite link has
a limited capacity, congestion is a common problem in
these areas. Satellite calls have an inherent delay.
The customer is quickly realizing the high quality of
calls that a GSM network deployed over Microwave can
offer and the immense growth of Afghan Wireless user
base is true evidence of this.
Afghan Wireless believes in providing high quality
GSM services to its customers and hence preferred the
Microwave route over the easy route of providing
connectivity through satellite. This strategy,
although costly and time consuming, helped in
providing a state of the art GSM experience to the
customer. The calls are clear, without any delay or
satellite congestion restrictions. Looking into the
future, when there would be a higher demand for Data
services moving over GPRS, EDGE, and leased lines and
eventually 3G, this backbone would have an important
role in providing the necessary bandwidth.
About Afghan Wireless
Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC),
headquartered in Kabul, is the largest private
investor in Afghanistan, with over $300 Million
invested. Afghan Wireless is also the largest employer
of Afghans in Afghanistan, employing approximately
2,500 people directly and another 20,000 indirectly.
AWCC is a leader in delivering wireless and broadband
communication solutions to residential and business
customers. The company has a strong reputation for
philanthropy, supporting charitable organizations,
assisting orphans, women, hunger relief and education
through its own efforts and in conjunction with the
Bayat Foundation (http://www.bayatfoundation.org).
Additional information about Afghan Wireless and
the products and services provided is available at
http://www.afghan-wireless.com. |
