DUSHANBE, April 4, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- A roundtable meeting on the government’s proposed new regulatory system, the Unified Communications Center, scheduled for April 3 was not held as interested sides did not come.

The Association, Media Alliance of Tajikistan, jointly with the Dushanbe independent TV station, Simoi Mustaqili Tojikiston (SMT or Independent Television of Tajikistan), was going to hold a roundtable meeting on problems of the creation of the unified communications center in the country but it was not held because of absence of participants – representatives of relevant ministries and organizations, as well as mobile-phone companies and international organizations were invited to attend the meeting.

Only two representatives of the national operator Tajik Telecom, at which the center is expected to be established, came.  Therefore, it was decided to postpone the meeting.        

As it had been reported earlier, cellular communications operators are concerned over efforts of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) to create “one gate” system.  They raised the issue at a February 25 meeting in Dushanbe with senior representatives of a MoTC.  The ministry proposes to establish the unified communications center at Tajik Telecom.

According to Radio Liberty’s the private mobile-phone companies point out that Tajik Telecom has a debt of some $50 million and that the attempt to control the entire mobile-phone market is being proposed to ease the financial woes of the company, which is run by the MoTC.  The companies have suggested that an independent monitoring body be used in place of the government.

We will recall that for the first time, the ministry formulated the plan to establish the Unified Communications Center and Information Resource Unit under the Ministry of Communications in February 2006 already but the scheme was not implemented that time due to complaints of the cellular operators and criticism that came from international organizations. The ministry is pushing again for the establishment of the unified communications center.  Implementation of this project would require all telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) to route their traffic through the center.