Aquafon is a state run telecommunications company in
Abkhazia
Abkhazia, officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a List of states with limited recognition, partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, at the intersection of Eastern Europe and West Asia. It cover ...
. In 2014 it had 80,000 subscriptions.
History
Aquafon was established March 6, 2003, and its network became operational on July 13 of that year. By April 2007, the number of subscriptions had reached 50,000 and, in 2008, this number had further risen to 80,000.
In summer 2008, Aquafon began to provide
GPRS
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...
and video call services in test mode and officially launched its
3G network with
HSDPA
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...
support on September 30.
[Абхазский "Аквафон-GSM" запустил 3G-сеть]
07.11.2008
Ownership
51% of Aquafon's shares are owned by Mondeo Holdings, an
offshore company
The term "offshore company" or "offshore corporation" is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to:
* a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business proce ...
based in the
British Virgin Islands
The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...
. Mondeo Holdings is in turn 100% owned by
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest.
Bermuda is an ...
based ComTel Eastern, which also owns 31% of
and 50% of
Sky Link (Russia)
Skylink () is a mobile LTE 450 MHz (formerly CDMA-450 MHz) operator in Russia. Licensed territories of SkyLink include 76 entities of Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the ...
.
[
]
Competition
Until 2006, Aquafon held a monopoly on the mobile telephone market of Abkhazia. In 2006, a second company, A-Mobile, started to provide services.
See also
* Ostelecom (South Ossetia
South Ossetia, officially the Republic of South Ossetia or the State of Alania, is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus with International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, partial diplomatic recognition. It has an offici ...
)
References
Mobile phone companies of Abkhazia
{{telecom-company-stub