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"Motorola Inc. today announced a three-year frame agreement with MCT Corp. to expand the network of MCT's joint venture COSCOM across Uzbekistan, including its capital Tashkent. The network deployment is currently underway and will continually increase COSCOM's subscriber capacity and enable the operator to offer new high-speed data services to its subscribers. The expanded network will cover 900/1800 MHz bands and incorporates Motorola's Horizon II base stations that support GPRS and EDGE. In addition, Motorola will provide network optimization services across the network in Tashkent. The agreement, a portion of which will be financed by Motorola, builds on the company's 10-year relationship with MCT and will allow for long term cooperation, with a strategic focus on expansion and smooth migration to new technologies for COSCOM." From Yahoo! Finance, November 17, 2005.

Reporters without Borders has released its annual list of Enemies of the Internet, based on censorship practices. Central Asian countries are represented on this list. A very nice in-depth summary of some key issues going on in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. From Payvand's Iran News, November 15, 2005.

"MOSCOW, Nov 10 (Prime-Tass) -- The number of mobile telecommunication subscribers in Uzbekistan may more than triple by 2010 reaching 3.5 million users, compared with the current 1 million users, Abdula Aripov, the general director of the Communications and Information Agency of Uzbekistan, told journalists Thursday. The subscriber base is expected to double on the year to 1.1 million user by the end of this year 'if the growth rate persists', Aripov said. The user base rose 68.7% since January 1 to 917,800 users as of September 30, he said. Competition in mobile services is the driving force for user base growth, as companies introduce technologies and lower prices to lure customers, he said. The average mobile penetration rate in Uzbekistan amounts to 4%, while in the country's capital Tashkent the penetration rate is around 20%. In the country's regions this figure stands at 2%, Aripov said. The revenue of Uzbek mobile services providers increased 60% on the year to 143.7 billion sums in January-September, Aripov said. Currently, there are seven mobile operators in Uzbekistan, including the country's largest mobile operator Uzdunrobita, controlled by Russia's largest mobile operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), Unitel, Coscom, Perfectum Mobile, Buztel, and Uzbektelecom Mobile. Mobile services were introduced in Uzbekistan in August 1992. The first mobile standard was NMT 450. Since 1997, Uzbekistan has had DAMPS and GSM standards. Since September 2001, Perfectum Mobile has provided the CDMA standard in Uzbekistan. (1,158.28 soms - U.S. $1)" From Prime-Tass via Cellular-News, November 10, 2005

"Kazakhstan will tender a GSM-standard frequency next year, hoping that a third mobile telephone firm would boost competition on the fast-growing local telecoms market, Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov said on Monday. 'We plan to put up for sale the 1800 (megahertz) frequency on the telecoms services market to create a tougher and more competitive environment for mobile phone operators. We plan to do so next year,' Akhmetov said. The number of mobile phones users has reached 3 million in the Central Asian nation of 15 million, outstripping its 2.5 million fixed-line users. GSM Kazakhstan, majority owned by Nordic telecoms firm TeliaSonera and Turkey's Turkcell , dominates the mobile phone market with 2 million subscribers. Kazakhstan's second GSM services provider is Kar-Tel, a subsidiary of Russia's Vimpelcom ." From Yahoo! News Asia, November 7, 2005.

"The number of mobile users in Uzbekistan reached 1 million in the first decade of November, Uzbektelecom, an Uzbek telecom operator, said on its web site. It is expected that special presentation dedicated to the event will be held in Tashkent on 9 October. Currently, some six mobile companies operate in Uzbekistan, including Uzdunrobita, Unitel, Coscom, Perfectum Mobile, Buztel and Uzbektelecom Mobile, a branch of Uzbektelecom. Over 500,000 users were counted by Uzdunrobita. Uzdunrobita was the first Uzbek and Central Asian mobile company, which was founded in August 1991. A year later, the first call was made over a mobile system." From Yahoo! News Australia and NZ, November 9, 2005.

"The Eurasia Foundation (EF) recently launched a project to strengthen intellectual property protection in Uzbekistan, co-funded by the Microsoft Corporation and the US Agency for International Development. EF is working with the Uzbek Association of International Law to implement the project. The association will provide training and workshops for authors, copyright holders, government officials and consumers on copyright law and develop recommendations to improve legislation and regulatory procedures. 'We want to help the copyright holders learn about their rights,' said Dias Shukanov, business development manager at Microsoft Kazakhstan LLP. The association will also work with the government of Uzbekistan to improve legislative and administrative protection of intellectual property. 'If rights are not properly protected, copyright holders will not have much stimulus for further development and innovation,' said Ilkhom Khamidov, director of the project. By combating piracy and copyright infringement, the project will help protect the work of software designers, artists and others from Uzbekistan. It will also help the government of Uzbekistan comply with its international agreements, and help in its bid to join the World Trade Organisation." From UzReport.com, November 7, 2005

"BBC accounts of an uprising in the Uzbek town of Andijan earlier this year - when government troops opened fire on protesters - have resulted in the closure of the BBC bureau in the capital, Tashkent. There is a recording we made from Andijan so chilling that people cannot speak while it is playing. It is an open line to the mobile phone of one of the demonstrators. You can hear a wall of automatic gunfire, like siege fire, and among it people muttering their last prayers: 'Allah-u Akbar, Allah-u Akbar - God is great.' As the shooting grows louder and louder, the voices become thinner until, after more than an hour there is a click, and silence. The man with the phone was killed. This recording and many, many others from Andijan are the reason why we have been forced to leave Uzbekistan." From BBC News, Monica Whitlock November 5, 2005

"Uzbekistan receives seats in two bodies of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Jahon of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry reported on 25 October. The report said the country received a seat in Executive Committee of Paris Union. It added that 182 states voted for Uzbekistan. The committee includes Germany, China, Malaysia, USA, France, Japan – in total 41 states. Uzbekistan also was elected to coordination committee of WIPO, UzReport.Com said. The report added that two international seminars on intellectual property would be held in Tashkent in 2006." From UzReport.com via Radio Tashkent International, October 25, 2005

"The Uzbek Agency for Communication and Information (UzACI) and China Mobile held negotiations Wednesday on the development of cooperation in Uzbekistan's mobile communication sector." From UzReport.com via Yahoo! Finance Australia and NZ, October 21, 2005

OSCE ASKS KAZAKHSTAN TO REMOVE INTERNET RESTRICTION. RFE/RL Newsline Vol. 9, No. 206, Part I, 2 November 2005 The OSCE announced in a 31 October press release on the organization's website(http://www.osce.org) that Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE's special representative on freedom of the media, has written to the Kazakh government asking it to remove recently imposed regulations on the registration of Internet domain names. Noting that the new rules"would put the allocation of domain names on the World Wide Web in Kazakhstan entirely under government control," Haraszti offered three recommendations: 1) that a body independent of the government should administer the Internet in Kazakhstan; 2) that registration of a".kz" domain should be a "purely technical process"; and 3) that servers for a ".kz" domain should not have to be located in Kazakhstan. DK