Kabul residents complain low quality internet, high price

KABUL (Pajhwok): Some residents in capital Kabul have complained against the low quality and high rate of internet, while the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT) said 279 new telecom sites would be created nationwide in the near future.

Local residents in capital Kabul during chat with Pajhwok Afghan News said that Telecom Companies and the MoCIT had often announced reduction in the internet rate, a pledge yet to be materalised, while in most areas internet quality is very low and not properly work.

Mustaq Parsa, the resident of Kabul’s Kart-i-Chahar, locality complained against the low quality of and high price of internet and said: “I use Etisalat internet, one package of Etisalat cost 250 afs which is very high and in no other country such high prices are available.”

He works online and said due to low internet quality he had to wait for hours in order to send a file. Low internet quality affected their work at great extent.

He asked the government to hold relevant officials accountable and put pressure on them to improve the quality of internet.

Hijratullah, another resident of Kabul City 19th Municipal District, complained against the low quality of internet and accused relevant authorities of negligence in this regard.

He said: “The internet does not work well even for calls, which has caused us a lot of problems. I am currently using four SIM cards, one SIM card works within 500 meters and another SIM card works within 1 kilometer.”

He said he had to recharge four SIMs and this caused him to pay a lot of money only for credit Card.

Maryam, the resident of Kart-i-Parwan locality, had similar complaint and said: “The internet quality is very low when we have something important to do we have to wait for the internet to work properly, it doesn’t work properly in every SIM Card, government should pay attention and improve the quality of internet.”

He complained against the high internet rate and said 3.5 GB internet is activated against 399 afs.

Suhaila, another resident of 13^th Municipality District of Kabul City, said internet rate is very high in Afghanistan therefore many people due to economic problems have no access to the internet. Since many people are connected with the technology and need internet for communication its quality is low and price is high.

“If the internet rate goes down and we can use the internet at a cheap price, it will be good for everyone’s progress, and the second problem in Afghanistan is that the internet packages are not appropriate and its quality is low, sometimes we activate the internet, but nothing works. The company doesn’t give and our money back,” she said.

Individuals interacted by Pajhwok reporters asked the government to address this vital issue.

Enayatulah Alkozai, spokesperson for the MoCIT, told Pajhwok Afghan News 279 new telecom sites would be activated in the near future in areas where people did not have access to telecom services.

He said the new sites would provide telecom services in the areas where people have no access to telecom service, including internet.

He said the procurement and evaluation of this process had been completed and practical work would begin in days to come.

Referring to the public complaints regarding low quality internet, he said internet rate had declined comparing to the past one GB internet rate declined from 250 afs to 110 afs while call rate price reduced from 2.5 afs to 1.75 afs.

“Efforts are underway to improve the internet quality, earlier, two Darawsanj existed in the country while now its number increased to 10,” he said.

He added this network monitor the telecom services and identify areas with low quality service.

nh

Views: 306