Teletas SA, the second largest Turkish manufacturer of communications equipment, has formed a joint venture called Altel with Algoritm of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to manufacture digital telephone exchanges. Teletas is 39% owned by Alcatel NV, from whom the Turkish company gets its technology licences. The first stage of the project involves Altel installing 12 Teletas switches in eight Uzbek cities, adding 70,000 new lines to the telephone network. The project is part of a $25m programme financed by the Turkish government to improve the telecommunications infrastructure of the five Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Netas Northern Electric Telekomunikasyon SA, 51%-owned by Canada’s Northern Telecom Ltd, has set up a joint venture with Azerbaijan to build a 100,000-line system for the countryside and make 100,000 telephone sets a year for 10 years. Netas SA has formed a similar joint venture in Kazakhstan to build a 120,000-line digital switching system and make 120,000 telephone sets a year to meet rural demand for the next decade. The partly Turkish state-owned Netas, which holds 51% of each venture, may export $100m of digital switching systems to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan for use in towns and cities. Netas is also expected to sign telecommunications deals with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikstan. Teletas, in which the Turkish state has an 18% stake, linked Azerbaijan and Turkey last year. It has also signed an agreement to build telecommunications networks in Azerbaijan. Teletas has also installed a digital switching system in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, and earlier installed transmission and digital switching systems in Georgia. Netas executives told Reuter that only six people in 100 had telephones in Turkmenistan, compared with nine in Azerbaijan and 11 in Kazakhstan.
