Previously, the war-ravaged country's only connections to the World Wide Web have been via prohibitively expensive satellite links or through one tiny, crowded Internet cafe in the basement of Kabul's largest hotel.

Now, thanks to the Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC), which earlier this year established Afghanistan's first mobile phone system, a fledgling Internet network is being set up across the capital.

AWCC engineers are currently working flat out across Kabul, installing equipment which will offer relatively cheap, unlimited access to high speed data exchange and finally establish Afghanistan's presence on the virtual map.

"We have just started rolling it out. A few customers were installed at first for test purposes, the feedback was very good, so we're going ahead," said AWCC marketing manager Eshan Ayar.

Widely available Internet access would have been unthinkable 12 months ago when Afghanistan was still in the grip of the fundamentalist Taliban regime, eventually ousted late last year by a US-led military campaign.

Under the Taliban's extreme interpretation of Islamic law, which banned music, television and many forms of social interaction, the dizzying access to all three offered by the web would have incurred swift and brutal punishment.

There are no such problems under the current interim government, headed by President Hamid Karzai, which owns a 10 percent stake in AWCC -- the rest controlled by US firm Telephone Systems International (TSI).

The 70 million dollars being spent on Afghanistan's telecommunications infrastructure by TSI, owned by Afghan expatriate Eshan Bayat, is believed to be the largest private investment in the country's history.

The investment is likely to pay off, with would-be surfers beating a path to AWCC's door.

"We haven't even announced the service and already customers are queueing up to get connected. Word of mouth has spread the news," Ayar, who recently returned to Afghanistan from California, told Nampa-AFP.

"The potential is limitless, everyone and anyone will be interested in it. If you think about all these foreign businesses and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) that are now here in Afghanistan."

For most of the country's desperately poor population, the price of computer equipment, connection fees and the minimum 159 dollar monthly charge for unlimited access, is far beyond their means.

But, according to Ayar, they will benefit from those able to stump up the fees.

"For the charities and NGOs working to help rebuild Afghanistan, the cost of a satellite connection is far too expensive, and they cannot do their job.

"That's why we want to set up our Internet service, to improve the country.

"We also want to set up Internet connections in educational institutions and we are looking at partnerships with certain aid organisations to help bring the Internet to the whole community.

"Afghan children, women, students -- we will connect these people with the outside world."

Although the service is currently limited to Kabul, AWCC has plans to expand initially to the major cities of Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and Jalalabad and then to other parts of the country.

"We have big plans and I'm sure we will be a success," Ayar added.

bjn/hw Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 250539)

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