Some provinces witness telecom service outage

KABUL (Pajhwok): Telecommunications and internet services remained weak in some provinces on Saturday, badly affecting media coverage of the presidential election.

The inconvenience followed Friday’s assurances by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology (MoCIT) that there will be no suspension of telecom services during the election despite security challenges and threats of attacks on security forces.

Pajhwok reporters, however, from some provinces reported that mobile phone services did not work in the morning, but later started functioning.

In addition, weak internet service in some provinces also had a negative impact on the electoral process.

As a result of Taliban’s threats, telecom services in most of the provinces remained suspended.

In Baghlan province, telecom services of the Salam and other companies have been suspended over the past two days, affecting the election process.

Noorullah Pegham, IEC head for Baghlan, said that due to telecom services suspension he could not contact districts. He dispatched ballot boxes to districts, but received no information.

In Jawzjan, telecom services were active on Saturday but internet was very weak. In Samangan, telecom services properly worked in Aibak, the provincial capital, but there were no services in districts.

In Farah province, only Salaam network worked in some areas. In Badghis and Sar-i-Pul provinces, no telecom company apart from Salaam provided services.

Nh/ma