InterDigital Inc (IDCC)

[Gamco]

Iraq set to name cell-phone winners

U.S., European technologies vie for key contract

http://www.msnbc.com/news/976239.asp?0si=-

BAGHDAD, Oct. 5 — Iraq’s U.S.-backed communications minister is set to announce on Monday which companies will build the first mobile telephone networks in a country that has largely lacked even basic communications services since the war.
COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER Haidar al-Ebadi, in announcing the long-awaited and much-delayed tender results, should also reveal whether the wireless network will use U.S. technology or the rival, more widespread European GSM system that is used throughout the rest of the Middle East.
“The minister of communications is expected to make an announcement on this tomorrow,” Charles Heatly, spokesman for the U.S.-led administration ruling Iraq told reporters on Sunday.
Officials in the administration later said the announcement would be made in Baghdad at 2 p.m.
The licences are seen as among the most lucrative contracts to be offered in postwar Iraq, especially since wireless service was not available in the country during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Much of the country’s land-line system was destroyed in the U.S.-led war which ousted Saddam in April.
Under the licences granted, which will split Iraq into three areas, the winning bidder must have services up within two months and will have the licence for two years.
A decision to use the global system for mobile communications standard (GSM) would be a blow to U.S. firms hoping to build a wireless network in Iraq based on the CDMA (code division multiple access) standard developed by California-based Qualcomm Inc.
Mobile phones briefly sprang to life in Baghdad in July when Bahrain’s Batelco launched a network in the capital.
However heavy U.S. pressure forced Batelco to pull the plug on its $5 million network just days after starting services. A Kuwaiti service was also briefly available.

The U.S. Army and development workers now use a network in Baghdad built by WorldCom Inc, a bankrupt U.S. telecom firm that is doing business under the name MCI, but services are barred to ordinary Iraqis.
The U.S.-led authority has said public mobile networks should be up and running by mid-November.