Mobile Telephony and Internet in Afghanistan: Issues of Network Coverage and Quality of Service

Mohammad Asif

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Based on available literature and author experience in field, there are some challenges existing in the area of network coverage and quality of service of mobile telephony and mobile internet of cellular networks in Afghanistan. These challenges were main driving forces which moved author forward, in order to specifically find that, which are critical, major and minor, and furthermore propose adequate solutions based on analysed data, tested hypotheses, available advanced technical schemes, and conducted interviews with end users, operators, the MCIT and the ATRA.Among main findings belong, gender inequality, generational divide, and low level literacy in access to mobile service in Afghanistan. Obtained data further illustrates, the satisfaction degree of end users from the presence of network coverage, quality of service of mobile telephony and mobile internet. It furthermore indicates, the most annoying situations which end user experience during telephony conversation and mobile internet in the country. The Results show that, the majority of end users use mobile phone for telephony service, most of the complaints have raised from low signal intensity, low data rate, blocked call, dropped call, and low signal intensity in rural area (e.g. villages, countryside and borders). The dependency between specific categorical variables have been also tested, and based on the result of the chi square test, the level of dependency between them are determined. Advanced schemes of network coverage and quality of service proposed by various research scholars have been also reviewed in order to study and furthermore address the existing challenges technically.Based on the results, author recommends deployment of small cells, increasing number of drive tests, appropriate location for BTSs installation, deployment of recent self configured/self optimized schemes of handover and neighbouring cell list, increasing the value of the base station parameters, deployment of high order Sectorization, and increasing of numbers of TRXs of base station as adequate solutions for removing existing challenges in the areas of network coverage and quality of service of mobile telephony and mobile internet in Afghanistan.

Keywords

Mobile Telephony, Mobile Internet, Network Coverage, Quality of Service, Quality of Experience, Cellular Networks

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 31. 3. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Miloš Ulman, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Economics and Management

Master programme / field:
Systems Engineering and Informatics / Informatics