It is a curious contrast, not without painful irony, this reconstruction business in Iraq and democratic experiment in the Middle East.
The United States, unmatched hyperpower of the 21st century and high-tech giant, is hard at work with the Brits in Iraq to roll out new wireless services denied to Iraqi citizens during the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein.
The goal of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority is noble, laudable and straightforward: Export the American wireless experience to Iraq and let the people-indeed, this war-ravaged nation-reap the benefits. U.S., British and Iraqi officials have been evaluating applications of consortia bidding on three regional mobile-phone licenses. Investors and equipment vendors might be getting a tad anxious about the licensing delay. But cut some slack for these folks in Iraq who, when they’re not ducking sniper bullets, are dodging booby-trapped trucks. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “dead spots.”
As we lament (and patronize) Iraq’s impoverished digital landscape, let us not lose sight of our own foibles, on grand display. Indeed, the telecom chaos in Iraq is matched only by the circus of controversy in our fine land.
Just what would Iraq’s newborn telecom ministry see if it sneaked a peak at the great American wireless scene. It would see a Federal Communications Commission entangled head to toe in controversial wireless issues. It also would witness an American public mad as hell about mobile-phone service, mischievous monthly bills and clumsy customer service.
So it was last week that industry involuntarily offered up a voluntary code of conduct in hopes of quelling a consumer backlash manifested in class-action lawsuits, a tsunami-like wave in California called the telecom consumer bill of rights and angry state attorneys general.
The code aside, the Iraqi telecom ministry would quickly find industry unity in short supply. It would find an industry at war with itself and with the FCC over a sky-will-fall issue known as local number portability.
Ministry officials would see that when Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is not battling the Iraqi Republican Guard, it is trading blows with mobile-phone firms over a technology nicknamed 3G. They’ll probably get it before we do.
How, the Iraqi telecom ministry might ask, did the FCC ever get itself into this 800 MHz public-safety interference mess whose resolution seems as complicated as the problem itself? Ministry officials would be baffled-if not totally lost-at how 800 MHz and other wireless initiatives got so balled up.
The Iraq telecom ministry would see a frustrated and hapless FCC struggling to get E911 services on track in the U.S., despite a homeland security emphasis since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the U.S. that-in a roundabout way-brings us to the matter of wireless in Iraq.
And that’s just wireless telecom. Do we dare tell the Iraqis about California politics?
