MAZAR-I-SHARIF (PAN): A high-speed internet facility was rolled out in this northern provincial capital on Wednesday, benefiting at least 3,000 people in the city, an official said.
The Digital Subscriber Line was inaugurated by Amirzai Sangin, the minister for telecommunications and information technology, and the Balkh Governor Atta Muhammad Noor.
DSL was being rolled out in six cities across the country at a cost of $5 million, the minister said. Mazar is the third city, he said.
He said the newly-inaugurated DSL would benefit around 3,000 people in the city in providing speedier access to the web and also digital telephone lines.
Noor thanked the ministry for choosing Mazar-i-Sharif for the DSL trial. He said some phone services had slowed recently causing problems for people.
The minister said that, 80 percent of people in Afghanistan had access to a phone, and that nearly 13.5 million had benefited from phone services up until March 2010.
He said with the maximum number of people using telecommunications, the ministry's revenues had also increased. Last year the ministry collected 129 million afghanis in revenue, higher than any other ministry, he said.
The minister said that they were planning to introduce 3G mobile phone services which would allow people to use video on their mobiles.
He said the country would start issuing computerised passports and ID cards in the coming three years.
dk/cas