Afghan update - Roshan signs millionth subscriber

With a third competitor, mobile phone adoption in Afghanistan is picking up.

Earlier this month, Roshan Telecom announced their millionth subscriber.  I took notice because I attended a wonderful presentation by their CEO, Karim Khoja, at CTIA last spring (and wrote about it here).

Some of his anecdotes were amazing.  To build a typical cell site they first have to clear land mines and then build an access road. Then they install redundant diesel generators and substantial fuel storage as there is no electric power grid. Today, Roshan's combined electrical generating capacity is the largest in Afghanistan.

Rural cell sites have armed guards to protect against theft of fuel. However, they've never had a cell site attacked - even when there is fighting nearby, all sides understand the benefit of communications.

Last April, there were two operators in Afghanistan, Roshan and Afghan Wireless Communications Company (AWCC) with a third license granted but not on-line yet.  In July, Areeba launched the third network and it appears they managed to sign nearly 100,000 subscribers by the end of the September. Blycroft Publishing puts AWCC's 3Q subscriber count at 476,000.

That suggests total Afghan mobile subscribers have grown from 1M to 1.475M in just six months.  That's still tiny in a country with a population of 31 million (CIA estimate July 2006), but it's the kind of jump you expect when additional competition comes into a market.