French Alcatel installed 4 million telephone lines in Arab countries

The French telecommunication company Alcatel Telcom expressed its desire to maintain its 30% share of the telecommunications markets in the North African and the Gulf regions. The company has installed 4 million telephone lines in different Arab countries and it plans to double that number in the future. After carrying out its plans the value of all the lines installed by the company will reach $4 billion.

The company had installed 130 million lines in 30 different countries in the world through the end 1996 including, 22 million lines last year. The company considers the Middle East its monopoly market.

Although cellular phones had been banned for security reasons in some Arab countries, those countries soon realized that this ban would be ineffective due to the introduction of satellite telecommunications. Thus these countries had to develop their cellular phones services in the Arab countries.