News
Issue #2003 - 13 (April 2003)
(Updated Apr. 16, 2003)

INFRASTRUCTURE, PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Ericsson Response Building Rescue System in Baghdad

"We will probably enter as soon as the war is over. But it is the UN that decides exactly when," Kristina Forsman, Information Director of Ericsson Response, said to Svenska Dagbladet about when the company plans to move in to Iraq as part of the expected re-building of infrastructure if the United States completes its occupation of the country. 

Ericsson received considerable goodwill from the UN after building a wireless rescue system in Kabul last winter. The construction of the network took five days in a city that, until then, did not have any wireless telephony. Five hundred people from different aid-organisations have since used the network. Ericsson is now expected to be given a new assignment from the UN in order to build a wireless network in Baghdad after the war. 

The Ericsson rescue system is cheaper than satellite telecom, and can be built much faster than an ordinary wireless network – which is vitally necessary, as it is the only link between people from aid organisations and to the outside world. 

Ericsson Response is managed in close co-operation with the UN and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and has been involved in similar projects, after earthquakes, in Turkey and El Salvador, as well as after the terrorist-attack against US.

MobileInfo Comments and Advisory: This win for Ericsson is good news and morale boost. However it is a small order and would not help financially-beleaguered Ericsson. Big infrastructure contracts will come later and North American business interests might weigh heavily in deciding the awards.

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