Telecommunication Infrastructure

Saudi Arabia is currently undergoing a complete transformation of its existing telecommunication infrastructure. The project began in late 1994 when a $4.2 billion contract was awarded to AT&T, this project is to be completed by 2001. Currently the country has around 2 million phone lines in place, which translates into 10.64 phone lines per 100 inhabitants. This statistics places the country among the few lasts in the region. The following table provided by the ITU presents a comparison between the Kingdome and its neighbors, in addition to the US and the UK.

In addition to the wire-based phone lines Saudi Arabia has a wireless network (analog and digital) with a current capacity of about 200,000 lines.

The existing network: The existing backbone of the Saudi long-distance network was formed by an extensive, mostly analogue, microwave radio. Some of the initial 4 and 6 GHz microwave systems. The existing network also includes approximately 4,000 km of analogue coaxial cables between Riyadh and Dammam and between Riyadh and Jeddah, approximately 1,200 km of digital coaxial cable, and approximately 2,000 km of optical fiber systems including a multimode fiber system between Makkah and Taif (PDH optical fiber systems).

Telephone network: Saudi Arabia's telecommunication sector continues to grow at a remarkable rate, with the expansion of both facilities and services. The country's telephone system is already one of the world's most modern and efficient, and new microwave links with Arab countries have been opened to strengthen regional communication.

Microwave network: Domestic microwave service between smaller towns supplements the 9,300-mile 550-station microwave system.

Submarine Cables: Submarine cables complement Saudi Arabia's wire and satellite network to make the country an international hub for communications. The currently existing coaxial cables are part of the SEA-ME-WE (Southeast Asia/Middle East/West Europe) project, this cable connects the Kingdome to Egypt. Two other cables link the country with Bahrain and Djibouti. These cables are connected to earth stations distributed around the country.

In April of 1998 the Kingdome reached a formal agreement with FLAG (Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe) Telecom, the agreement will add the Kingdome to a list of 11 other countries already online. This cable links the UK, Spain, Italy, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, India, Malaysia, Thailand, China (at Hong Kong and Shanghai), South Korea and Japan. Jeddah will be the landing point of the cable. FLAG uses Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) technology, which means that the country will enjoy the benefits of high-speed high-quality digital communications with Europe and Asia.

Satellite and Coaxial: The Kingdom's seven standard earth stations link up with the Intelsat, ARABSAT and INMARSAT Satellite Systems, allowing subscribers to dial 185 countries directly. These stations are also used for television and radio transmissions. Currently Saudi Arabia has more than 6,000 satellite circuits. The country also has 3,100 miles of coaxial cables. Telex has also seen impressive growth, with the number of lines increasing to 9,800, linking over 152 cities and villages to countries around the world.

ARABSAT is a consortium of 21 Arab countries, Saudi Arabia is the largest stakeholder with 36.66% of paid capital. To meet the increasing demand within its coverage area, as a result, ARABSAT presently is in the process of adding new services to its existing services, such as:

VSAT Networks.

Thin Route SCPC DAMA.

Digital TV Broadcasting.

Cellular and Wireless systems: Saudi Arabia has two cellular systems in place at this time, the first is an analog cellular system. It was introduced in the early 80’s with a limited coverage area, but it greatly improved over the years. This system has a capacity of 30,000 lines and is still being used through out the country.

The second more recent system is the GSM 900; the GSM network is digital providing better quality and flexibility. This network has been in operation since January 1996 and by now is already serving some 170,000 subscribers in four major cities in the Kingdom, namely Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Makkah. In the last two years the network was expanded to cover more than 30 cities.

WANs and LANs in the Kingdome: A few years ago only a very few number of networks exist in the country, most of them belong to large size organizations (educational, government, commercial). Most of these networks are LANs (local area networks) with the exception of some government (military, monetary agency) branches and some commercial institutions (banks, MNCs) who use WANs (wide area networks). Only recently did smaller organizations started to create networks, this area in Saudi Arabia is still at its infancy stage. Although the number private networks has dramatically increased in the last few years, is still far less than what it should be.

The year 2001: This is the set date for completion of the undergoing project, which will expand the Kingdom's telephone network by 1.5 million lines for a total of 3 million subscriber lines and 500,000 GSM subscribers. The existing, predominantly analogue transport network, will be transformed into a modern digital infrastructure with some 10,000 km of fiber optic cables in SDH rings configuration and it will be managed by new Operations Support Systems.

Currently the country does not provide high speed services (ISDN, T-1, ADSL) nor digital communications, but under the project referred to as TEP6/GSM such services will be available for subscribers. The program will also includes an implementation of the GSM digital cellular network operating in the 900 MHz band. This network will be expanded over the next three years to serve a total of 500 000 customers in 45 major cities and 3500 km of highways across Saudi Arabia. The new transport systems will be optical fibers and digital radios conforming to the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy standard.

Extensions of the junction network are built to connect new exchanges to the network and handle the expanded traffic from the new exchanges and from the extensions of the existing exchanges. Close to 100,000 junction trunks are being added to the existing network. More than half of these new trunks is going to be transported over new optical fiber systems. New digital microwave systems are planned to add new capacity for some 10,000 junction trunks.

The Expansion Project is providing 170 junction and access network rings in the whole Kingdom. This installation includes 50 junction network rings with a bandwidth of STM-4 (622 Mbps) and 120 access network rings with an STM-1 bandwidth (155 Mbps).

The long-distance network is being built using a backbone of five 2.5 Gbps fiber optic rings augmented by high capacity digital microwave radio hops. When completed, the long-distance Fiber Optic Network (FON) will cover the geographical area of Saudi Arabia in its entirety.

Some of the major players in the local Saudi Telecom industry are:

ARABSAT

Binladen Telecommunications Company

Saudi Cellular Company

Note: STC (Saudi Telecommunication Company) is the sole provider of local, national and long-distance service in the country.