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First Internet Cafes to Open in Kabul After Decades of Isolation
Monday, July 1, 2002
(10:48 GMT)
By Dusan Stojanovic
Associated Press Writer

"Internet? What is that?” asked Mustafa Brahimi, 49, as he pushed through a crowd in Kabul's dusty open-air Mandawy market. When told about the network, his questions reflected other complications. "It sounds great,” he said. "But what about electricity? How will it work without it?”

KABUL, Afghanistan -- AP
After decades of near-total communications isolation, Afghans are about to make a leap onto the World Wide Web with the opening of the country's first Internet cafes.

"We plan to open up to three Internet cafes in Kabul within the next 2-3 weeks,” said Alex Grinling, managing director of the Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC) which will become the war-ravaged country's first Internet provider.

Afghanistan took a major step forward in the telecommunications field in April when the state-affiliated AWCC company launched the first cellular telephone network. President Hamid Karzai placed a call to an Afghan refugee living in Germany, something nearly impossible through the old telephone lines that served the hardline Islamic Taliban regime.

The nation's thirst for telecommunications became apparent during the loya jirga, the grand council that met last month to choose a new national leadership. All week, delegates chatting into cellular phones strolled the sunny plaza outside the meeting hall, and were provided a temporary Internet access in a nearby hotel.

Reliable telecommunications are considered critical to knitting back together a nation long divided by a bitter civil war.
(More: Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

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