Overview
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 a 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.