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Shrink-wrap comms gear holds up Iraq high-tech revolution

A good way to stop people using new equipment is to hide it. If you can't do that, wrap it up in plastic. That works - or at least, it did when a US contractor installed new networking gear in a centre near Baghdad (reports Reuters). The ghost of Darrell Issa [right] must be walking.

Some of the world's most modern comms equipment is being wielded by armed forces in the Gulf. Secret and nearly-secret equipment includes Flarion-provided Flash-OFDM comms for the US Navy, and IP Wireless "smart patches" for uniforms for US land forces. Neither company is authorised to reveal details of what the equipment is, or how it is used.

But, says the latest report, getting new wireless gear into the hands of the local population is proving to be a cultural hazard.

One contractor delivered equipment for a network node for a country-wide WAN, and then tried to get hooked into the switch. It failed. "I kept trying to call them and I was baffled as to why I couldn't get through," said the contractor hired, according to Reuters, by the military to set up a coordination office. It turns out they had not installed it.

Instead, they shrink-wrapped the gear, and put it somewhere safe:  "They were just afraid of breaking it," said the contractor.

The expected bonanza in selling high-tech comms gear raised fierce rivalries when the country was first invaded by the task force which toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. Propaganda began by Qualcomm-sponsored lobbyists like Congressman Darrell Issa attacked GSM technology with the strongest possible epithets, calling it French, for example.

Back then, he said: "We have learned that planners at the Department of Defense and USAID are currently envisioning using Federal appropriations to deploy a European-based wireless technology known as GSM ("Groupe Speciale Mobile" - this standard was developed by the French) for this new Iraqi cell phone system."

At the time, NewsWireless warned that getting gear into Iraq was one thing; selling it to enthusiastic consumers, however, would be quite another. Somewhat prophetically, the writer of that report said that if the plan was to privatise the wireless network after the war was over, then: "I would suggest that you don't buy stock in the (no doubt, American) company which wins the contract to provide this service, because if it is mandatory for these phones to have GPS circuitry, then incredibly few native Iraqi citizens will be able to afford them."

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