By now everyone probably knows that URUKLINK.NET is or was the only or primary ISP in Iraq. I came across this [1] and I thought that it was interesting. There's two items in the data -- which states are in which "tier" for POTS penetration, and where has POTS growth been negative. I've picked on the Iraq-adjacent states. Another source [2] is Iraq-specific w.r.t. telecommunications, and has a slightly higher penetration rate, prior to 1991. The Soviet Army withdrew from Afganistan on 02.15.89. Sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990. The numbers are CPE-to-PSTN w/dedicated port, per 100 persons. .af 1988 0.20 1998 0.00 (last date data available) .jo 1989 7.22 1998 8.34 (9.25 in 2000) .iq 1988 4.00 1998 3.10 (last date data available) .ir 1988 4.05 1998 11.18 (14.90 in 2000) .kw 1988 18.92 1998 23.59 (24.40 in 2000) .sy 1988 5.81 1998 9.38 (10.35 in 2000) .tr 1988 11.70 1998 25.45 (28.00 in 2000) Eric [1] http://www.sesrtcic.org/cgi-local/indquery.pl?indcode=GRPHN [2] http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/dp/dp5/telecomexecsum.html
On Sat, 12 Apr 2003, Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine wrote: > The numbers are CPE-to-PSTN w/dedicated port, per 100 persons. > .af 1988 0.20 1998 0.00 (last date data available) > Main Telephone Lines in Operation per 100 Persons (Number) > Main telephone lines refer to the telephone lines connecting a > customer's equipment to the Public Switched Telephone Network and > which have a dedicated port on a telephone exchange. Having just returned from Kabul, where PCH has been assisting the Afghan Ministry of Communications, I can tell you that things are bad, but not nearly as bad as those numbers would suggest... Those numbers are for copper (of which there are about 33,000 subscribers in Kabul) and don't include mobile phones, which about double that. In addition, a second GSM provider has been licensed, and is starting their build-out, and the second provider is funded by the Aga Kahn and will probably be providing very low-cost service. So things there are looking up. There's a bit of a tussle right now between overseas bell-heads who are trying to sell old SS7 switches into Afghanistan and are lobbying the MoC to outlaw VoIP and define the Internet as an application that runs over 64K switched channels, versus the younger guys in the MoC who are trying to define a relatively progressive telecoms regulatory environment which would allow domestic Afghan telecoms investment, more like the New Zealand regulatory scheme. In such an environment, of course, voice is an application which runs on top of the Internet. :-) So it's been interesting working with them. I just hope they don't succumb to the bribes and threats the bell-heads are plying them with. -Bill
participants (2)
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Bill Woodcock -
Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine