IN ECHOES of Oscar-nominated film Slumdog Millionaire, an Irish telecoms executive is playing a central role in bringing the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? to Afghanistan.
Alan Barry, who spent three years in Afghanistan helping build up the mobile phone operator Afghan Wireless, is now working to bring the game show to a sister television network in the country.
Afghan Wireless was the first mobile operator into the local market following the US invasion in 2001, and is one of four now operating a GSM network. During Barry’s time in the country, initially as sales director and eventually as chief commercial director, subscribers grew from 400,000 to 2.2 million and Afghan Wireless’s monthly revenues went from $4 million (€3.13 million) to $10 million.
Talking to Barry, it’s clear he fell in love with the country, its rugged terrain and its friendly people. Having worked in the mobile industry in Britain for several years, he jumped at the opportunity to travel to Afghanistan when the mobile network founded by Ehsan Bayat, an Afghan immigrant who had built up a number of successful businesses in the US, came calling.
Afghan Wireless has built a complete microwave backbone to support its network, which Barry says now covers all the country’s main population centres and highways. The average revenue per user is about $7. That’s low by international standards but, as Barry points out, the average monthly wage is $200.
Barry, who is Irish by birth but grew up in Britain, did a stint in the Grenadier Guards and his military training stood him in good stead during his time in Afghanistan. “When I first went out there, I travelled all the way to the Iranian border, near Farah, which is now under Taliban control,” he remembers. “I just went with a guide and a driver and carried a personal weapon.”
The worsening security situation means that when he returns to Kabul now, he sleeps with a Glock pistol beside his bed. He also made sure that he flew an Irish tricolour in the garden of his rented home in Kabul “just in case anyone thought I was British”.
Barry is currently writing a book about his experiences, entitled Tea with the Taliban, a reference he says to the fact that he always tried to engage with local leaders where Afghan Wireless was operating – regardless of their allegiances.
“We embraced the local population and used local guards rather than bringing in foreigners,” explains Barry. While he concedes that the company relied on a “massive amount of ex-pats” in its early days, they now account for less than 2-3 per cent of the total workforce.
“We purposely trained up the Afghans to take over from us,” he says.
As a result, the fledgling mobile operator did not suffer the attacks on its telecoms towers that have dogged some western-backed firms.
“By bringing it into the community, they see it as their gateway to the world,” says Barry.
He is particular proud of the impact that cheap, widely available telecoms services have had on the average Afghan. He remembers, during an early stint in the Afghan countryside, picking up a woman and her daughter who were walking 30km in freezing temperatures to make a phone call to a relative in Germany.
In the same vein, he is equally enthusiastic about the potential that winning one million afghanis (€16,500) might have in a country where the gross domestic product per capita is just $800.
“The beauty of it is that all Afghans can enter by simply sending a text message and our sister TV network will broadcast it,” says Barry.
