Afghan Development on the Line

Samee-allah, 20, picked us up from Kabul to drive to Jalalabad. Samee, the nephew of Jalalabad strongman General Hazrat Ali, drove with one hand while holding his satellite phone on the other, speaking a Pashtun language called Pashi that many northeastern Afghans speak. Not many, though, have a gadget like this young man's satellite phone. That might change in the future, if a new joint venture between an émigré and the interim government succeeds.

Every 40 minutes, Samee would check the phone's battery and then put it to the car charger. From 2 p.m. until he dropped us at his uncle's house eight hours later, he was constantly talking. Sometimes our security guard, sitting on the open-air part of the car and carrying a gun, asked to borrow the phone for a short call. Samee's conversations seemed casual, from what I could gather. But his phone was serious business. It had come as a package of gifts to his uncle from the American army. Many Afghans associated with the government have their own satellite-connected phones, or "satphones," and most get service from Thuraya. While the antiterrorism coalition hunts for al Qaeda holdouts, Thuraya - whose board represents Persian Gulf nations and whose owners include phone companies from most Arab states, along with a German phone company and US-based defense contractor Boeing - helps Afghans talk to each other.

Thuraya has become a common name even in rural Afghanistan, where few people can afford its service. Local phone lines in Afghanistan are old and unreliable, so Thuraya satellite service is becoming habit-forming for people who can get it. Samee escorted us for three days to Pakistan. He drove us from Jalalabad to Peshawar, Pakistan, to Islamabad and back to Jalalabad. All the while, he could not let go of his satphone, except to recharge it. Finally, I asked him if he had some special business that necessitated using a phone every minute. " I'm talking to my cousin [son of Hazrat Ali]," he said. "He is studying in a boarding school in London and getting bored there, and he is very homesick. He needs my attention."

That attention does not come cheaply. Thuraya charges around a dollar per minute of use, but the lack of a functioning banking system makes it very difficult to pay bills with checks or credit cards. Foreign journalists and workers who use Thuraya can usually bill their corporate accounts overseas. But Afghan residents who don't have ATM cards from Western banks can most easily get phone service by purchasing a calling card. The cards run from $39 to $180 a unit.

Phone companies are beginning to compete for Afghans' attention. Ericsson, a Swedish manufacturer, has also set up a wireless network in the country. Most officials carry a Thuraya phone (made by Hughes, a former General Motors unit, and by a Swiss company called Ascom) in one pocket and an Ericsson in the other. The UN brought Ericssons; US and British forces brought Thuraya service. A less common choice is a Nera, a hybrid phone-laptop, courtesy of a Norwegian export firm.

How did this global phone bazaar begin? During autumn 2001's battles against the Taliban, American-led forces distributed telephone sets to their Afghan allies. According to a staff member of General Mohammed Fahim, a Northern Alliance leader now serving as Defense Minister, "American Special Forces distributed Thurayas and Neras because they needed exact information on enemy positions and other intelligence. Without a communication system it would have been impossible to destroy the Taliban."

As he has endorsed the Northern Alliance, Hazrat Ali has also endorsed its phones. While staying with Ali on our way to Peshawar, I asked him how many minutes he was using his phone each day and who paid for it. "Oh, I must use my Thuraya for the equivalent of maybe $1000 per day," he said matter-of-factly. "I don't know who pays the bill," he continued. "Maybe the US government or maybe this government. It is not my business." His Nera sells on the market at around $4000. He said he got that from the US Army as well.

This confusion about phone charges is no laughing matter. As long as providers operate without regulations or taxes, an Afghan phone system can bring huge profit margins. "These telephone companies are operating without any agreement with us," Minister of Communication Abdul Rahim told me. "Ericsson has no agreement but has the excuse that since the UN people use it here, that means it is involved in humanitarian work. They have never asked us about things like frequencies, calling plans or paying any fees to the government." Kurt Hellstrom, president and CEO of Ericsson, spins its involvement as charity in corporate press releases: "Ericsson is working with the World Food Program