ZAGIL Wireless unveils its plan for Iraq's Mobile Network

ZAGIL Wireless, an international consortium with strong regional connections led by a prominent group of Iraqi telecommunications and business leaders, today submitted its bid for a license to operate a wireless network in Iraq.

"By working with experienced partners to bring wireless communications and other important services to an economy in the early stage of reconstruction, we hope to be able to leap-frog older technologies and rapidly contribute towards increased efficiencies across a broad spectrum of activity nationally and region wide," said Francis Dinha, CEO and founding member of ZAGIL Wireless. "We are therefore very excited to be working with worldwide telecommunications leaders like Ericsson and MCI to provide state of the art turnkey solutions and services," Dinha further noted.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), in preparing the tender document, has divided the country into three regions: north, center, and south and is requiring bidders to select a minimum of two regions when bidding. After the initial period of 12 months, all three operators can roll out nationally. "We believe each region has its own characteristics and as such represents a compelling opportunity to provide vital communications services to a long neglected population," said Hayder Haba, VOEX's CEO and a founding member of the consortium, who stressed that ZAGIL Wireless sees this tender as an important milestone to address Iraq's pressing need to connect with the rest of the world. "We see a uniform need across all regions of Iraq, and therefore, we are bidding on all three, and anywhere ZAGIL Wireless operates, it will provide the best social value and pricing to the Iraqi consumer, a majority ownership for Iraqis," Haba pointed.

Currently, a limited availability of unaffordable satellite phones is the only alternative to an almost completely devastated fixed-line network that did not survive years of war and misrule. "The ZAGIL Wireless led consortium brings to the telecommunications sector in Iraq valuable complementary core- strengths from the region as well as state-of-the-art technology and considerable relevant experience, commented Mohamed Shaboot, Marketing Director for the Consortium.

ZAGIL Wireless's business plan calls for major capital expenditure in the early stages so as to rapidly establish base sites and assure an equitable focus across the main cities. It will also entail significant attention to the development of much needed qualified Iraqi personnel to operate and maintain the network. "We are here for the long run and are fully committed to building a first-rate communications network for the Iraqi people," remarked Dinha. Emphasizing the role and importance of the mobile license to the Iraqi public, Ghiath Sukhtian, representative of the equity investors, added, "This company will be offered to the Iraqi people for subscription in the form of public or private offering as soon it is practicably possible." "This will be a majority owned Iraqi company," Sukhtian asserted.

The consortium's bids and business plan were the results of extensive study and analysis of the Iraqi telecom scene and the regional context. Zagil Wireless consortium retained the services of the Arab Advisors Group, the leading telecom research and consultancy house in the Arab World, to provide primary research and analysis of Iraq and the region as well as act as a coordinator and manager in preparing the bid documents. "We believe our business plan is backed by very reliable research and analysis and are therefore confident that our packages in Iraq will offer the best social and business value in Iraq and across the region," Dinha added.

Echoing this confidence is Asaad Y. Alnajjar Chief Strategy Officer VoEx Corp./ Zagil Wireless Consortium stated: " We are all very proud to be part of the rebuilding of Iraq and to serve the Iraqi citizens. What you see here, today, is the first step delivered by our consortium from the fruits of many hard labored years by our founding members. We have been for several years actively working, planning and engineering to forecast not only the Iraqi GSM system but also the whole Information Technology Spectrum for the region and many innovations to come. It is our intention and ambition to have the New Iraq established to reach global technology excellence in Five Years."