SAUDI ARABIA: PHASE 8 OF SAUDI TELEPHONE SYSTEM'S DEVELOPMENT TO BE
UNDERTAKEN BY SEVERAL COMPANIES.
According to el-Sharq el-Aussat, Dr. Ali Ben Tallal el-Jehani, Saudi Arabian
Minister of Communication and Post, and
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Arabian Telecommunication
Corporation, stated that all participating
companies in the tender for Phase 8 of the development of the Saudi Arabian
telephone system (2 million telephone lines)
would be required to carry out a portion of the project. This decision was
made in accordance with the present policy of the
Saudi Arabian Telecommunication Corporation "not to put all of its eggs in
one basket." Dr. el-Jehani named the following 5
companies as winners in the bid: Lucent Technologies, Northern Telecom,
Ericsson, Siemens, and Alcatel. The scheme will be
financed through loans taken by the Telecommunication Corporation from Saudi
sources having no direct involvement in the
initiative.He added that AT&T is to complete Phase 6 of the plan by the end
of the present year, 18 months ahead of the date
originally scheduled (mid-2001). He reported that the Telecommunication
Corporation had connected 400,000 telephone lines
during the past 4 months. The main difficulty is with obsolete connections,
having a capacity of 700,00 lines, which are unable
to connect large volumes of subscribers to the Internet. These lines are all
due to be replaced by the end of the first quarter of
next year.
|
