KHOROG, January 28, 2013, Asia-Plus  -- 200 owners of mobile phones being served by Tajik Telecom’s office in the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) have been left without communication.

Zafar Butabekov, deputy head of Tajik Telecom’s office in GBAO, told journalists on January 28 that the main reason for that was incapacitation of equipment that was installed by Chinese specialists in the area two years ago.

“Last year, Tajik Telecom’s office in GABO rendered 1,322 somoni worth of services to its customers, 18 percent fewer than in 2011, while 652 new customers of Tajik Telecom in the region were registered last year, bringing the total number of Tajik Telecom’s customers in Gorno Badakhshan to 12,000,” Butabekov noted.

According to him, last year’s decrease in the volume of services rendered by Tajik Telecom to its customers in Gorno Badakhshan resulted from heavy snowfalls that hit the region in early spring last year.  “As a result of avalanches and mudslides that hit the Khobu Rabot Pass last spring, an optical fiber cable providing wire communication between Dushanbe and GBAO’s districts did not work for nearly three months,” Butabekov said.