KABUL (SW): Afghanistan has witnessed a significant inflow of cash in forms of aid and investment following the fall of the Taliban regime over a decade ago leading to boom in various sectors, including telecommunications.
In the beginning there were just a couple of telecom firms operation in some urban pockets, but soon their network flourished, prices came down and more and more people got connected while the number of operators surged to six.
Though, foreign investment and inflows of cash have slowed down with the withdrawal of some 100,000 foreign troops after 2014, but the telecom sector is still booming. Subscribers receive messages of promotions and new packages on daily basis. These firms are still striving hard to attract more and more customers with some even promising latest 4G technology.
However, customers remain skeptical about the quality and prices of the services they are getting.
We tried to have the views of some Kabul residents in this regard. Bahram Khan, one such resident, informed that he promptly deletes all promotional messages that he receives from his operator even without reading. He charged most of the advertisement and promotional messages are ‘false’, and hardly ever prove to be true.
“Let’s take the example of their claims about fast internet connection for low prices, the internet is dead slow and the prices are high in reality”.
Bahram Khan was of the opinion that all these aids are just to attract more and more money from the customers.
Same views were echoed by another resident of the city, Mena Rezaey. She expressed annoyance towards the barrage of promotional messages she receives from her mobile operator on regular basis. “I am tired of all these promotional messages, I seek help and advice from friends and relatives to get rid of this problem”.
She, however, hailed the positive competition among various telecommunication firms that have, according to her, helped reduce prices and improve quality of service. Mena Rezaey mentioned that she utilizes internet services, and use it to socialize, stay updated about news, forex rates etc.
Mohammad Hussain, another Kabul-based mobile phone user, said that he felt ‘cheated’ by operating firms, because a number of packages charging money were activated on his phone without his consent.
To share all these views with the relevant officials, and have their opinions, we approached the Afghanistan Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (ATRA) at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). Syed Mohammad Anwar, advisor at ATRA, informed that there are hotlines 999 and 998 available for customers to lodge complaints against any violations and infringements by telecommunication firms.
Anwari further said that ATRA has teams that can even investigate complaints in provinces as well. He vowed any violations of the rules and regulations based on the complaints of the citizens can even led to cancellation of the license of these companies.
According to official statistics, up to 86 residential areas across the country fall under coverage area for telecommunications, and 72 per cent of population has access to telecommunications. The rates for consumers utilizing telecommunication services in Afghanistan are much cheaper in the region after Pakistan and India.
ENDS
