Afghanistan began its telecommunications reconstruction program in 2002 and started putting a new national telecommunications infrastructure in place The Telecommunication Services Regulation Law of Afghanistan promulgated in December 2005 When the first 2 GSM licenses were issued in 2003, it did not contain mandatory clauses for the provision of telecommunication services in rural areas, but instead the GSM operators had to pay a percentage of their adjusted gross revenues as contribution to the TDF. According to the telecom law of Afghanistan and world normal procedure, ATRA collects 2.5% of gross revenue of telecom operators. Universal Access Policy and Manual of Operation of the Universal department of ATRA issued in 2008 give the responsibility to ATRA to implementing RTD projects for providing telecommunication services in rural areas step by step where there is no telecom service or it is at low level.
Several overall policies will guide the application of TDF:
• The Fund is not operate facilities, but provides subsidies to operators.
• Projects defined by the ATRA. Unsolicited applications is not considering.
• The ATRA/UAD defines a group of projects for each fiscal year. Except for school and health clinic projects, and phones for nomads
• RTD project subsidies awards through a least-subsidy tender
Universal Access Definitions and Targets Universal Service Obligations (USO) represent those elements of universal service/access that an operator would not voluntarily provide to certain customers (e.g., low income users) or customer groups in particular areas (e.g., high cost, rural areas) because the revenue raised from such customers would fail to cover the costs involved. This type of obligation is often placed upon operators and service providers to ensure extensive coverage of their services. Major Objectives and Mechanisms to Promote UA.
Some of the major objectives for implementing universality policies are:
• To permit full participation in 21st-century society
• To promote national political, economic, and cultural cohesion
• To promote economic development
• To encourage balanced development and population distribution
• To eliminate urban-rural disparity
• To help eliminate poverty