Katel

active

Kyrgyz-American Telephone (Katel) was a Kyrgyz-US joint-stock company which received its cellular license for national operations on March 10, 1992. The local partner is Kyrgyztelecom, the state-owned local operator. In July 1994 the company started commercial operations in the country. The company had 580 subscribers in Bishkek in 1996. This figure reached 1,500 by the end of 1997. The project costed over US$12 million dollars, which had been invested by the American side. In 1999 the technical capacity of Katel was substantially increased, when it installed new digital main stations and a new commutative center in Bishkek. Additionally it started the installation of a second commutative center in the south of the Republic. By 2002, installation activities were underway in the Osh, Chui and Issyk-Kul Oblasts. The equipment supplier was Ericsson. The company was looking for investors who could help increase the company's network and market share. By 2002, Katel provided mobile communication services for 15,000 subscribers in the digital standard TDMA (IS-136). Its network covered about 7% of the territory of the Republic, a number that sounds small, but consider that 76% of the Kyrgyz population lives in this area. The company had access to automatic roaming in 71 foreign countries. The company had competed with the GSM network of BITEL, a company that had 80,000 subscribers in 2003. In late 2003, a third mobile service operator named AkTel, which provided services under the FONEX brand name, came online. 2011, 2012 Capex N/Av 2013 ibid