The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Thursday it has approved a 35-million-dollar loan to help expand and upgrade the cellular phone network in Afghanistan. The Manila-based ADB said the loan will fund a project to extend the coverage of Roshan, a private limited liability company that provides cellular phone, public call office, international gateway, and internet services in Afghanistan. "The project will help expand Roshan's coverage towards its ultimate goal of countrywide coverage and will help fund the deployment of public call offices which extend the reach of telecoms to the less affluent and more remote users," the ADB said. The bank noted that after 23 years of conflict, Afghanistan is left with no functioning national fixed line telecommunications service, a barely functioning postal service, and poor roads. Cellular networks are still embryonic and require significant additional investment, particularly if they are to reach beyond the major cities, it added. "Telecommunications is an essential element of a country's infrastructure, alongside transport, water supply and energy," said Michael Barrow, an ADB senior structured finance specialist. "Cellular telephony is seen as the only viable method of providing reliable, countrywide communications coverage in the country," he added. The ADB said Roshan was also going to get a 10-million-dollar loan from the Societe de Promotion et de Participation Pour La Cooperation Economique for the project.
