In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, the deputy head of the communications service agency, Ilhom Atoyev, revealed on January 31 that mobile operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) operating in Tajikistan last year earned totaling 3,867,609,467 somonis, which is 7.8 percent more than in 2022 (In 2022, they reportedly earned 3,586,838,000 somonis).
According to him, 78 companies provide services in the field of electronic communications and they have 255 types of different service licenses in this area.
In total, 1,328 permits and 156 certificates of compliance for electronic communications have reportedly been issued to legal and physical entities.
“This year, a license for direct access to high-speed Internet has been granted to two telecommunications companies and now citizens of the country have access to this Internet,” Atoyev said. But he did not name these companies.
According to him, a total number of subscribers to electronic communications services in Tajikistan is 7.8million people.
Atoyev also noted that Open Joint-Stock Company Tojiktelecom ((Tajikistan's fixed-line and mobile telecommunications network) last year provided 158,746,200 somonis worth of services to its customers.
“All private telecommunications companies operating in Tajikistan enjoy all available benefits and freely carry out their technical, financial and economic activities,” the telecoms regulator official added.
Recall, the communications service agency has issued a license to two private telecommunications companies, Indigo-Tajikistan (Tcell trademark) and TT-Mobile (Megafon Tajikistan trademark), to supply high-speed Internet to the country through international channels. The document was issued for period until July 2027.
The Communications Service’s official website noted on November 18 last year that this step will help reduce the cost and improve the quality of the Internet.
The Communications Service does not say whether these companies will have right to sell Internet to the population directly bypassing the centralized data spigot called the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center, or EKTs in its Russian-language acronym.
In Tajikistan, the process of monopolization of the telecommunications market began in 2016 and that's when the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center was established. The Tajik authorities required that all Internet and mobile communications traffic be run through the single state-owned telecoms provider Tojiktelecom. The Center centralizes all telephone and Internet communications with the aim of facilitating surveillance on the grounds of combatting terrorism and extremism. It allows the government to have complete control over domestic communications without any safeguards.
Changes to the rules at the start of 2018 radically enhanced Tojiktelecom’s earning power. Citing vague security concerns, the government deprived local fixed-lined and mobile service providers of the right to buy data traffic from neighboring countries. Instead, ISPs were required to buy their data from Tojiktelecom. This has given the company a suffocating degree of leverage over its privately owned peers.
