Afghan Wireless Completes 2,500km Microwave Ring for GSM Backhaul

Afghanistan's Afghan Wireless has announced the completion of its high capacity digital Microwave Ring around the country. This is the first Microwave Ring across the country in the history of Afghanistan covering a distance of 2,500 Kilometers and millions of dollars of investment. It passes through 18 provinces providing direct coverage and connectivity to the population residing in surrounding areas.

The Microwave Ring has also helped in providing coverage to all major highways connecting Kabul to Kunduz to Mazar to Herat to Kandahar to Kabul.

Afghan Wireless is the only telecom company providing microwave connectivity to the Uzbekistan and Tajakistan borders in the North to the Pakistan borders in the South and East. It also connects to the Iran border in the West. The ring probably has the longest link of 187km between Charkend and Qaramqol.

The backbone ring offers immense capacity with a minimum of STM1 connectivity (155Mbps) and redundancy while providing connectivity across the country.

Since most part of the country of Afghanistan is covered with mountains, it is extremely difficult to build a network based on fiber optics and terrestrial links. Most operators in the country prefer to roll out faster using satellite links to remote locations. The customer is quickly realizing the high quality of calls that a GSM network deployed over Microwave can offer and the immense growth of Afghan Wireless user base is a true evidence of this.

According to Tushar Maheshwari, Chief Commercial Officer of Afghan Wireless " this strategy, although costly and time consuming, helped in providing a state of the art GSM experience to the customer. The calls are clear, without any delay or satellite congestion restrictions. Looking into the future, when there would be a higher demand for Data services moving over GPRS, EDGE, and leased lines and eventually 3G, this backbone would have an important role in providing the necessary bandwidth".

The Afghan Wireless Microwave Ring connects the North of the Country in Mazar, Takhar, Badakshan and Kunduz to Kabul over the Salang which is further connected in the South to Kandahar and Spinboldak. The ring further extends West from Kandahar passing through Hilmand, Nimroz and Farah to reach Herat. It also extends from Herat to Mazar via Badghees, Faryab and Jawjan provinces. In the East, the ring connects Kabul to Jalalabad and Turkham Border along with the Kunar Valley. It also connects Gardez and Khost in the South East of the country.

Posted to the site on 30th October 2007