AT&T said it has won a $4 billion contract - the largest overseas telecommunications deal ever - to expand and modernize Saudi Arabia's telecommunications infrastructure.
In a statement released by the U.S. telecommunications giant Monday, Alawi Kayyal, Saudi minister of post, telegraph and telephone, called AT&T "the company that has worked with us to solve our problems.""After several months of intense and detailed analysis by our engineers of all the offers, AT&T was chosen as the best - both technically and in cost," Kayyal said.
Other bidders for the contract, known as the "Telephone Expansion Project - 6" (TEP-6), included European tele-com-mun-ications giants Alcatel and Siemens.
The deal calls for AT&T to build Saudi Arabia a fully digital communications network, "including 1.5 million digital lines and thousands of associated network components for switching, trans-mission, network management, fiber optics, wireless, civil works and training projects."
"Targeted for completion by the beginning of the next decade, the new network will double the current capacity of Saudi's existing facilities, providing new local, toll and international services to the entire Kingdom," AT&T said in a statement.
Under the contract, AT&T plans to install advanced 5ESS digital-switching systems at more than 200 Saudi sites, with some 35,000 kilometers of copper and fiber-optic cables, as well as connections to rural districts via digital microwave-radio systems.
Plans also call for providing 200,000 subscribers with wireless telephone service.
President Clinton sent a letter to Saudi King Fahd last week urging him to select AT&T.