Mideast firms signing deals with Koreans for broadband

Middle East companies that are in Busan for a technology exhibition this week are finding success in building ties with Korean companies. At the ITU Telecom Asia 2004 venue yesterday, Korea’s largest fixed-line operator signed a contract with Iran to install high-speed Internet. KT reported a record-high single export deal with AsiaTech, a major Iranian Internet service provider, to create 100,000 broadband lines in 20 cities, including Tehran, by 2005 for $26 million. Currently, 3.1 million of Iran’s 67 million people use the Internet, but most have only slower dial-up connections. “We hope to increase broadband penetration rate to 55 percent by 2009,” said Ahmad Zadeh of the state-run Iran Telecom Research Center. This year, Information Minister Seyed Motamedi of Iran attended the event along with 83 government officials. Other information technology ministers from the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan, Israel and Algeria, came to the exhibition as well. “Not every household has a telephone, but we are experiencing an 80 percent annual growth rate in mobile telephony,” said chairman Shahid Farooq Si of Pakistan’s National Telecommunication Corporation. “Our purpose of participation is to show big players like Samsung the potential and availability of our infrastructure and perhaps attract investment or create ties.” by Wohn Dong-hee