Revealed: Afghanistan-based Roshan Telecom Setting up Shop in East Africa

Rumored “nameless” telecom operator believed to be Afghanistan’s Roshan.

PC Tech understands that Roshan, Afghanistan’s leading telecommunications provider, serving nearly 6.0 million active subscribers in the country is setting up shop in Uganda and three other East Africa countries.

The company has launched an Internet (Social Media) and SMS-based campaign in which it is asking users to nominate a name and win prizes, as reported by PC Tech yesterday.

In Afghanistan, Roshan is completely owned by foreign parties and interests.

In January 2003, with the help of the US military intervention in Afghanistan, Roshan was awarded the second GSM license in Afghanistan at a time when there was virtually no telecommunications infrastructure in place due to the ongoing wars; national calls were prohibitively expensive and Afghans had to travel abroad to make an international call. In ten years of operations, Roshan’s subscriber base has grown from 30,000 to nearly six million, as there was no real competition in the market because of the ongoing war.

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Roshan, which means “light” or “hope” in Persian, is Afghanistan’s leading telecommunications provider. Today, Roshan’s GSM network reaches 240 cities and towns across all of Afghanistan’s provinces. Roshan covers over 60% of the population, including the most remote rural areas.

The Clues

While the teleco’s objective was to remain anonymous for now, obvious clues helped editors from UGO and PC Tech to determine the identity of the company. Some of the artworks on the current domain, GiveUsAName.net show embeded links to Roshan’s Afghan domain.

Also, see image below (while paying attention to the brand colors as well).