Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Batelco turns on GSM service in Baghdad

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:51:20 -0400

Batelco turns on GSM service in Baghdad
By Heather Forsgren Weaver
July 24 13:28:00, 2003

WASHINGTON—A day before the civilian administrator of Iraq addressed the National
Press Club and the U.S.  Department of Commerce released the details of an auction
of Iraqi mobile-phone licenses, a mobile-phone network began operations in
Baghdad.

Batelco Iraq, a new division of Bahrain Telecommunications Inc., claims to have
10,000 operational lines, which coincidentally is the same number of lines claimed
by bankrupt WorldCom Inc.’s affiliate MCI, noted The Register, a U.K.-based
electronic news service.

Besides MCI, MTC-Vodafone is operating in Basra at the behest of the British
military, which controls that southern city.  There is also a holdover network in
the Kurdish area to the north known as Kurdtel. Other areas of Iraq did not
previously have mobile-phone service.

A spokeswoman for Ambassador L. Paul Bremmer of the Coalition Provisional
Authority said it had not decided what it would do about the network. Bremmer was
the speaker at a National Press Club luncheon here Wednesday, the day after
Batelco started delivering GSM phone calls to the outside world via a satellite
link. While Bremmer spoke passionately about rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, he
did not mention its telecommunications network, focusing instead on the power grid
and water.

MCI received authority from the U.S. Department of Defense to operate a
mobile-phone network and has contracted with Motorola to help it build one.
Motorola told RCR Wireless News Thursday it was not aware of the Batelco network.
Batelco told the Associated Press it plans to participate in the July 30-31
auction of three regional mobile-phone licenses.  The United States hopes these
three licenses can be leveraged into nationwide networks to produce three
competing networks.
The International Trade Administration, a unit of the Commerce Department,
Wednesday released details of the auction to be held in Amman, Jordan. The
licenses will be good for two years. At which point, it is hoped an Iraqi
government will be up and running and be able to make its own licensing decisions.

Batelco spent $5 million to set up the network. The Bahrain Telecommunications Co.
is owned by the government of Bahrain and Cable & Wireless L.L.C. In addition to
carrying calls from customers with GSM phones, Batelco also plans to offer service
and free phones to Baghdad’s emergency workers. Batelco and MCI both use GSM
technology, which is used by Iraq’s neighbors. CDMA is currently not offered in
Iraq.

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=14434

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