August 19, 2002 –
The Afghan city of Herat is now part of the new GSM network launched in April by the Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC).
Herat is the second city to join the network inaugurated in Kabul. Five cities, including Mazar-i-Sherif, Jalalabad and Kandahar, are scheduled to be part of the network that AWCC says will play a "pivotal role" in the commercial and economic revival of the war-torn country.
The launch of GSM mobile telecommunications services in Herat, located near the Afghan border with Iran, is regarded, both politically and economically, to be an important phase of the roll-out program, "in part because of the city's key strategic geographical position on the old silk road," according to the AWCC.
The network, using the +93 Afghan country code, includes voice services as well as voicemail, SMS text messaging and Internet access. AWCC is providing customer services in three languages, Dari, Pashtu and English.
"I believe that a telecommunications system is the cornerstone for economic development in a country that has been ravaged by war," said AWCC's founder Ehsan Bayat, an Afghan emigre who moved to the U.S. in 1980. "AWCC is committed to doing its part, today and in the future, to help bring the economy back to its feet."
Bayat adds that the availability of communications services in Afghanistan is "attracting Afghan emigres from the region, Europe and the United States who fled the country during the last two decades of conflict, easing their return to Afghanistan to help rebuild their homeland."
AWCC, working in partnership with Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications, says that the seven-week deployment of it network is the "the fastest GSM service roll-out in a developing country."
In July, AWCC opened Afghanistan's first Internet cafe in the Intercontinental Hotel, Kabul.
AWCC is a joint venture between Telephone Systems International Inc. (TSIntl), a U.S.
registered and privately held company headquartered in New York, NY, and the Ministry of Communications of the Afghan government. TSIntl was founded by AWCC founder, Ehsan Bayat. For more information, visit www.afghanwireless.com.
