Date: 28 October, 2010

Press Release

On 28th Oct 2010, while H.E. Barayalai Hassam Technical Deputy Minister, H.E. Sadaat, and Admin. Deputy Minister, Members of the ATRA Board, a number of the leading personalities of the MCIT and ATRA, representatives of Telecommunications companies and a large number of reporters were present, Engineer A. Wakil Shergul Chairman of the ATRA Board signed contracts of the 3rd RTD project consisting of 67 sites with the Telecom companies which were considered as winners in an earlier bid evaluation session.
At the outset of the meeting which was held in the conference room of the ministry, H.E. Barayalai Hassam Technical deputy minister addressing the audience said:

In accordance with the provisions of the Telecommunications Services Regulation Law, the Ministry of Communications & IT, and the Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ATRA) have the obligation to provide opportunities for the growth and development of Communication services through Universal Access and Service Projects in Afghanistan.

It is worth mentioning that, due to some logistic problems, huge amounts of money required for investment, and low expected return for the investments, the telecommunication service providing companies always put the remote areas of the country at the end of the list for expanding their telecommunication networks.

 Therefore, Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ATRA), in compliance with the provisions of the Telecommunications Services Regulation Law and the prevailing international procedures, established the “Telecommunication Development Fund (TDF)” to pave the grounds for the expansion of telecommunications services to remote villages and local communities.

Based on the provisions of Telecommunications Service Regulation Law, the telecommunication service providing companies were obligated to make contributions equal to 2.5% of their net revenues towards the Telecommunication Development Fund (TDF) on quarterly basis.

In 1387, ATRA compiled and finalized the policy and procedures for the implementation of universal access projects in local communities utilizing the TDF fund. Initially two Universal Access Projects, each consisting of 20 towers and BTSs were launched for delivering telecommunication services to 40 remote Districts in 9 Provinces of the country in which the telecom service providing companies had not adequately extended their networks due to the reasons stated above. Some of these projects are still under construction.

On the 28th July 2010, ATRA put out to tender a third Universal Access Project which includes “103 BTSs and towers, and the bid opening meeting was conducted on September 1st 2010, in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, and Ministry of Justice, ATRA and the bidding companies. Out of the 103 sites included in the project, offers were received for 67 sites.

In the process of the bids evaluation, the following companies were announced as winners:

- Afghan Wireless Company:   winner for 34 sites

- Etisalat Company:                 winner for 23 sites

- Roshan Company:                 winner for 5 sites

-Afghan Telecom Company:   winner for 4 sites

- Wasel Telecom Company:     winner for 1 site

The total amount of subsidy for these 67 sites, which comes to approx. US$8,5 million will be paid through the TDF fund which has been collected from the operators for this very purpose. These sites, as per the signed contracts, are expected to be completed in a time span of one year in 60 districts of 25 provinces where there are either no telecommunication services, or the service level does not meet the community needs.

H.E. Mr. Hassam added that by completion of these projects, around 335,000 of our fellow citizens in the remote areas will benefit from telecommunication services.

Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority