U.S. ORDERS BAGHDAD MOBILES OFF

Last week, mobile phones mys­te­ri­ously began work­ing in Baghdad, giv­ing the war-​​ravaged city a needed boost to its shat­tered com­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture. Now, the BBC reports, U.S. author­i­ties in Iraq have ordered the Bahraini firm Batelco to stop run­ning the ser­vice.
“The author­i­ties were con­cerned that a rene­gade ser­vice provider could upset its own plans to put Iraqi mobile licences up for ten­der next week,” accord­ing to the Beeb.
“Since Batelco had not applied for a licence of its own, the Coalition Provisional Authority has asked the firm to shut down its roam­ing facil­ity. The firm said it had already spent $5m (3.1m) on infra­struc­ture in Baghdad.“
(via Techdirt)

July 28th, 2003 | War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.