Macro Ryan dwellers provided digital phone services

Jul 8, 2009, KABUL (PAN): Afghan Telecom has operationalised 10,000 digital telephone lines in the third Macro Ryan residential locality on Wednesday.

Minister for Telecommunications and Information Technology Amirzai Sangin told journalists that the 10,000 digital telephone lines were part of the project under which a network of 250 thousand lines would be spread across the country.

He said the 70 million US dollar project was launched in 2007 and the contract was awarded to an Iranian company in the name of Shaheed Qandi. Under this project, 100,000 telephone lines would be distributed in Kabul, 50,000 in Herat and the rest in other cities of the country.

He said 8,000 telephone lines had already been provided in Kunduz, 15,000 in Mazar-e-Sharif and 10,000 in the eastern city of Jalalabad under the same project. The minister said the project would be completed in the coming two to three months.

The minister said Afghanistan would soon sign an agreement with Tajikistan and Russia for provision of Internet services in the country. With this agreement, he hopes, the cost of Internet in Afghanistan would reduce by 90 percent.