Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Long, Hard Road to Rebuilding Iraq Telecom System

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 22:15:29 -0400

Long, Hard Road to Rebuilding Iraq Telecom System

Though there were few phones in Iraq before the war, there are even fewer now. 
The war knocked out about 12 of the 25 Baghdad telecommunications switches. Iraqis
are concerned because communication is necessary for emergency services, business
and other important activities, such family contact. The US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority will restore the network to pre-war service, but even then
coverage was spotty.

Prior to the war, there were 3 phone lines for every 100 Iraqis, and it was
expected that it would cost $1 billion over seven to 10 years to fix the system.
The US Agency for International Development issued contracts to clear debris at
six of the 11 most important switching stations. MCI has built a cellular network
in Baghdad, but only 10,000 US military leaders, reconstruction officials and aid
workers have been given phones and everyone else has to do without. 

The US will take care of some of the repairs, but rebuilding Iraq will fall to
private companies and the Iraqi government, scheduled to be sworn in after
mid-July. Western telecom companies are more than happy to help -- French company
Alcatel, and U.S.  companies Lucent, Motorola and AT&T have all said they are
interested in contracts.

==============================================================================================================

Iraqi Frustration Grows
Due to Telephone Woes

Associated Press

Before the war, Baghdadis who needed an
ambulance simply dialed 122.

"We needed only five to 10 minutes to pick up the
victim and get him to the hospital," said Dr. Sabah
Baker Jaber, who oversees the city's emergency
medical services for the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

Now it takes an hour or so to walk or drive to the
nearest neighborhood emergency station, then hope
for an idle ambulance. If the case is urgent, the
results are often tragic.

"If there's a cardiac attack, the patient can die," Dr.
Jaber said. "80% of our work depends on
communications."

The American bombardment of Baghdad pulverized
about a dozen of the capital's 25 central
telecommunications switches, almost completely
knocking out telephone service.

The 20 phones in Dr. Jaber's central dispatching
office died on March 29.

Since the war, few Baghdadis have kept the ability
to make international calls. Some others' phones
work, but only for calls within their neighborhoods.
The majority sit silent, like the twin red and white
phones on Dr. Jaber's desk, awaiting months of
major infrastructure repair that has yet to begin.

The troubles extend well outside the capital. In
Basra, the country's second-largest city, the
telephones work only for local calls.

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority plans to
restore the Iraqi network's spotty prewar service,
tackling just part of a giant telecommunications repair
job: Before the war, it was estimated that fixing the
system would cost $1 billion over seven to 10 years.

An outline drawn up by the U.S. military envisions
carting away the rubble covering the destroyed
switching stations and connecting temporary digital
switches to the underground phone cables, which are
believed to be intact, said Col. Bill Kern of the U.S.
Army's 354th Civil Affairs Brigade, which is
monitoring the project.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has
already issued contracts to clear rubble at six of the
11 most critical switching stations, Col. Kern said.

It's a big job. In the Azamiyah neighborhood, a
steel-lattice radio tower lies like a toppled sequoia
atop homes next to the flattened network building.

"Until you've dug all that stuff off the top, you don't know what the condition is," Col. Kern said. He guessed it would take months before Baghdadis recoup some use of their phones. Col. Kern had no information on cost of the repairs or length of the contract.
In the interim, U.S.-based telecommunications company MCI has built a cellular network in Baghdad.
So far, only about 10,000 U.S. military leaders, reconstruction officials and aid workers have been issued phones, which augment their radios and satellite phones.
For everybody else in this city of 5 million, communications are done in person or not at all.

Jamal al-Din, 42, owner of one of Baghdad's ubiquitous ice cream parlors, says he shuttles between his home and shop to solve problems he previously handled via telephone.
He's also sent a brother to stay in Jordan to ship supplies, because he can no longer order them by phone.
But Mr. al-Din's business tribulations pale in comparison to those of his personal life. On June 2, his grandmother died. By the time he found out, she'd already been buried.
Before the war, Mr. al-Din called to check on his grandmother, who lived on the other side of Baghdad, every few days. But with the phones down, he hadn't spoken to her for two weeks.
"All of this I couldn't do because the phones didn't work," said Mr. al-Din, a large man with a thick beard, slouching on a divan against the wall in his cavernous living room.
U.S. officials in Iraq stress that the country had few phones to begin with.

The phone network was bombed in the first Gulf War and languished in disrepair largely because of trade sanctions. In 1990, Iraq had 5.3 phone lines for every 100 people, but by 1998 there were only 3 per 100, according to the International Telecommunications Union. Neighboring Iran has 16; Syria has 11. The U.S. has 67.
While the U.S. will handle some of the repairs, Col. Kern said most of the work is someone else's business.
"We're not going to rebuild Iraq," Col. Kern said. "Iraqis are going to rebuild Iraq."
Or, perhaps, private companies will do the rebuilding.

Col. Kern said he expects Iraq's interim government, scheduled to be sworn in sometime after mid-July, to use its authority to sell off the country's telecom network and other chunks of the state-run economy.
With so many key aspects of society needing repair, from physical infrastructure to government agencies, privatization could take some pressure off the fledgling Iraqi government.
"That's what I expect to see: bring in large corporations and sell off a lot of stuff," Col. Kern said. "Put that money in other parts of the country."
The Western telecom sector will be only too happy to oblige. Officials from France's Alcatel, which built much of Iraq's current network, and U.S. companies like Lucent Technologies, Motorola and AT&T have said they're eager for contracts.
But the first telecom to land one is MCI, the new name for WorldCom, which sought bankruptcy protection last year after revealing a massive accounting fraud. To the consternation of many inside and outside the U.S., MCI landed part of a $45 million short-term communications deal from the Pentagon.
But MCI's budding cellular network is off-limits to average Iraqis, who are angry about the destruction.
Mr. Al-Din figures the U.S. government should reimburse him for the $600 cost of a Thuraya satellite phone he uses to keep in touch with his sister and her husband in Saudi Arabia.  The satphone is one of the few devices that can be used to call inside and outside Iraq.
"The Americans destroyed the phones here," Mr. al-Din said, hooking his thumb in the direction of the bombed-out al-Mamoun phone exchange down the block. "The Americans should pay for it."

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105552971957874600-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=MCI+%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29

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