Afghan Telecom (AfTel) is a telecom company offering fixed line, wireless voice and data services under a 25-year license in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. The company was government owned and operated but was later purchased by Azizi Bank. In 2005, the Afghan Ministry of Communications spun it off into a private entity, while retaining oversight and control. AfTel has roughly 200,000 employees in 34 provincial capitals and 254 district centers and villages. It offers traditional wire-line telephones and

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

access in the major cities, a third generation

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

-based

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

local loop In telephony, the local loop (also referred to as the local tail, subscriber line, or in the aggregate as the last mile) is the physical link or circuit that connects from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the co ...

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunications services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is ...

, a

4G LTE In telecommunications, long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for cellular mobile devices and data terminals. It is considered to be a "transitional" 4G technology, and is therefore also referred to as 3 ...

and

fiber Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often inco ...

-based internet services, based on switching, wireless access and satellite equipment. Afghan Telecom is a beneficiary of a

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

$500 million

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

grant to help government increase

telecommunications network A telecommunications network is a group of Node (networking), nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit ...

connectivity in Afghanistan. In March 2018, Khyber Khan was appointed as director general and CEO and in June 2018 Mohammad Waris Fazli was appointed as Chief Information Officer to lead the ICT direction of the company. Seeking to grow its five percent market share, Afghan Telecom acquired access to 60 to 70 mobile towers owned by Etisalat.

References

Telecommunications companies of Afghanistan Mobile phone companies of Afghanistan {{telecom-company-stub www.salaam.af