Lucent gets $75m to rebuild Iraq

The US Department of Defense awarded Lucent Technologies a $75m contract to repair or upgrade communications networks used by Iraqi private businesses and the nation's interim government agencies, Lucent said on Thursday.

Lucent plans to begin work immediately on both wireless and wireline telephone systems for police, airport flight controllers and postal services in Iraq, according to a Lucent representative.

The representative said repairs are also planned for connections between privately owned Iraqi communications companies and telephone companies outside the embattled nation.

A Department of Defense representative said the Lucent contract and other Iraqi telephone infrastructure repairs are a "significant portion" of the more than $7bn the US is spending to rebuild vital infrastructure in the war-torn country.

Although rebuilding efforts have been slowed by sabotage, access to telephone systems has improved by 10 per cent since the US-led invasion of Iraq last year, Iraqi officials say. There are now nearly a million homes and businesses with access to a phone, with about a quarter using mobiles, said the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

But phone systems certainly haven't escaped the sabotage altogether. In early April, for example, a bombing attack destroyed a major a telecommunications facility.

Lucent Technologies has so far won about $100m in contracts in Iraq. Major defence contractor Bechtel paid Lucent $25m to install 13 switching, optical and network management systems in and around Baghdad under a separate subcontract to Bechtel.

Neither Lucent nor the Department of Defense would say how many companies bid on the contract.

Ben Charny writes for CNET News.com