U.S. calls for GSM on Iraq airwaves
The U.S.-led administration in Iraq issues a tender for a nationwide cell phone network using GSM technology, not rival CMDA as advocated by a U.S. congressman.
A senior telecommunications official with the U.S. government told Reuters on Monday that Iraqi airwaves would be divided among 124 bands, opening up big opportunities for many companies to operate in Iraq, according to the tender issued Saturday.
A U.S. congressman in March had urged his government to build a wireless network in Iraq based on the rival CMDA (code division multiple access) technology developed by Qualcomm, a California company.
"The tender came GSM as expected, otherwise there would have been a riot. The whole region operates on GSM," he said, referring to the Global System for Mobile Communications, which is the wireless standard used in most of the world.
There are four separate networks operating at present in Iraq with around 100,000 total subscribers--two in Iraqi Kurdistan, one in Baghdad and another in the southern province of Basra.
Karim Qader, a senior Iraqi engineer with Asia Cell, the operator in the Kurdish region of Sulaimaniya, said a national network would take six months to build and would attract at least 2 million subscribers in the first year.
"Iraq has been without modern communications. It will be a huge market. The land network was not up to scratch even in the best of days," Qader said, adding that GSM was the obvious network standard for Iraq.
The U.S. Army now uses a 10,000-line GSM network built by MCI to communicate in Baghdad. MCI is the new name for bankrupt U.S. company WorldCom.
An administration official said last week that the tender would be for licenses of 18 months to two years.
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