RIYADH, 27 February — Saudi Telecom Company said it was following up with great anxiety the failure of specialized international firms to develop the next generation telephone (NGT) due to financial and manpower problems. The STC is worried as the companies have heavily invested in the Kingdom and have offered to employ Saudi youths after training them.
Abdullah Al-Rasheed, director of mobile network operations at the telecommunications giant, said the company follows up with concern matters related to international firms it deals with, especially those related to technology failure, financial situation and staff retrenchment.
“The STC fears that failure of these foreign firms to fulfill their commitments around the world would affect their activities inside Saudi Arabia,” he said. The statement comes after Australia’s TelAstra decided to freeze its NGT project.
NGT is part of the digital network project. The contract had been given to Nortel Networks, which suffered a loss of $19.4 billion in the second quarter of last year.
