The Telecom Development Company Afghanistan (TDCA) has signed a contract for the supply of a complete solution for GSM infrastructure and services, including the deployment of microwave radio and carrier-class transmission solutions. The system is already operational in Kabul under the commercial name of Roshan and will cover the five main cities of Herat, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kunduz by the end of 2003.
Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel is supplying TDCA with its Evolium™ solution, which encompasses a radio base station subsystem (BSS) and a core network subsystem (NSS), including a mobile switching centre (MSC).
When completed the network will include an intelligent network platform for value-added services such as voice mail service (VMS) and a short message service centre (SMS-C).
To carry high capacity traffic, the network will also deploy microwave radio and carrier-class transmission solutions, both managed by Alcatel's integrated transport network management platform. The network will also encompass the company's VSAT connections for both domestic and international communications giving Roshan the possibility to take advantage of the end-to-end capability of Alcatel.