With President Clinton’s invaluable help, AT&T Corp duly won the contract worth more than $4,000m to rewire Saudi Arabia for advanced communications services over seven years, a contract that involves digital switching and fibre-optic cabling for 1.5m new lines, and a new wireless network, initially for cellular phone and wireless data services for 200,000 subscribers; L M Ericsson Telefon AB said it was surprised at the procedure involved in, and the scope of the contract, adding that it had not yet received any official information on the termination of the evaluation of the tender, and reckons it made the cheapest opening bid; Northern Telecom Ltd on the other hand said it was prepared for the AT&T victory, because it understood that negotiations between AT&T and the Saudi ministry were already well advanced when it ended its exclusive supplier agreement with its Bell Canada Ltd affiliate earlier this year, in part to win US export support.
