Amid growing customer complaints on social media, Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority on Saturday cited insecurity, lack of electricity and landlockedness as reasons for higher prices of internet in the country.

Addressing complaints over automatic activation of value-added services, ATRA chief Najibullah Azizi said that henceforth no company could activate the services without the customer’s approval.
He said that calls to ATRA for lodging complaints have become free. He also said that telecom companies have increased number of free calls from customers to 20 calls per month.
He said that some telecom companies have reduced price of internet outside packages from 10 afghanis to one afghani per MB.
On slow internet speed, Azizi said that telecom companies have promised to change their frequencies to address the problem.
He said that the authority had fined five companies 250 million afghanis over the last three years, collecting 90 percent of it. He warned that companies failing to improve their services would face new fines.
On selling of unregistered SIM cards, Azizi said that 200,000 of such SIM cards have been seized so far. He cited lack of electronic ID cards as a reason for the problem.