The first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Afghanistan was NEDA Telecommunications (NEDA), which was founded in 2003 and initiated their service for that country, starting with dial-up and moving swiftly into wireless broadband services.
NEDA quickly established itself as the leading ISP in Afghanistan with a presence in most major cities and with aggressive plans to roll out additional services and coverage in the future.
As the preferred ISP for most of the banks and ministries in Afghanistan’s Capital City of Kabul, NEDA was approached by the Government of Afghanistan to provide them with an upgraded, private communications network for the country’s ministries. The Government of Afghanistan was running on a SCPC-based network, which provided connectivity but was ultimately too expensive and outside of the available budget. The Government of Afghanistan is funded by donor agencies such as The World Bank and the United Nations Organization. As such, the government required a cost effective network solution which would also provide top-quality security.
Due to the cultural challenges in the region, NEDA also required a satellite service provider partner with a recognized, successful track record of experience in the Middle East and Asia (MENA).
Coming Onboard
NEDA chose to partner with SpeedCast—the firm has been serving Internet Service Providers and the private sectors in the Middle East during the last decade, providing connectivity and value added services to the region. SpeedCast installed a new satellite network which provides a secure, private network for one of the ministries of the Afghanistan government.
The new satellite network provided by SpeedCast has more than 50 sites to deliver the required connectivity and service levels to all of the sub-ministries, including the different departments and banks that need to be connected to the main Ministry of Finance.
SpeedCast designed the new private network to aim at providing reliable and secured connection that allows improved efficiency and productivity by extending connection coverage for the Government. The network is also cost-effective and scalable, allowing for upgrades to be easily made for future technological developments.
As the relationship has developed, SpeedCast continues to work with NEDA to develop the Government of Afghanistan’s communications network. SpeedCast is working with NEDA to ensure that the government always has the most cost effective and secure network to help facilitate the smooth running of the country.
An Outcome of Results
Through the provisioning of their VSAT satellite solutions and also leveraging their decades of experience, SpeedCast has successfully helped the Government of Afghanistan install the first iDirect base private network in Kabul. This is a major achievement for the Afghanistan, as this is the first private communications network owned by the government.
Through SpeedCast’s partnership with NEDA, the Government of Afghanistan now has a state-of-the-art, secure network through which data can be transfered using the latest VSAT satellite services.
This deployment demonstrates SpeedCast’s commitment to enable their partners to provide high-quality VSAT services to connect users in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
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Fysal Gill has 11 years of association with SpeedCast Group and currently heads sales for Central and South Asia. By profession, he is an expert business developer for Emerging Markets in key verticals related to the fields of IT and satellite communications and holds a Master Degree in IT & Communications along with 20 years of professional industry experience.
Fysal is a Certified Private Equity Specialist and a member of the International Academy of Business and Financial Management (IABFM) and has participated in the launch of renowned startups, multinational companies and has contributed in driving these entities to become billion-dollar businesses within a few years.
Fysal has attended numerous forums as guest of honor, speaker and judge, including ITCN Pakistan, MAJU (Entrepreneurial and Innovation Forum), and All Pakistan Young Entrepreneurial & Innovation Summit YLES. He has attended numerous exhibitions, summits, conferences and training days relating to key verticals in IT, telecoms and satellite communications in Hong Kong, Singapore, UAE, USA, Turkey, Europe and Central Asia.