Kuwait Times

Published Date: November 08, 2008
By Ben Garcia, Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Kalimat Telecom, Iraq's national telecom network launched the first WiMax network in Baghdad. The $500 million project is the national Fixed Wireless Local Loop (WLL) Telephony and Data provider aiming to serve 28 million Iraqi citizens. Barely five percent penetration in Iraq for obvious security problems there in the past, but with the improving situation, Kalimat Telecom is now poised to take off and plans to secure 60 percent of Iraqi subscribers in the next two years.

We are proud to announce the launch and make it happen despite the prevailing situation. We are targeting customers like large commercial facilities, residential areas and government institutions," Wilson Varghese, Kalimat Telecom CEO and President announced at a press conference held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel which was attended by some Iraq embassy officials.

Kalimat Telecom won the 10-year wireless license from Iraq's Communication and Media Commission in September 2006. Kalimat Telecom is currently based in Kuwait. "We have survived and we are proud of our achievement. As you know many investors do not want to go to Iraq, but we managed to invest although until now it is still hard but progress has been very clear and we are slowly getting there," he said.

Kalimat Telecom awarded the WiMax hardware contact to the Redline Company, a global leader in WiMax network solutions. "Redline technology will enable significantly faster and more cost effective services," he added.

Dr Nasi Abachi, CTO Kalimat Telecom noted that new WiMax service will facilitate the provision of many important services for the SME sector and large businesses. "The WiMax service will allow provisions of up to about 21 Mbps, per sector in the four sector base stations that Kalimat uses. This facilitates the provision of multitude of broadband services of various speeds to a relatively large number of users," he mentioned.