tcora@pica.army.mil (Tom Coradeschi) (03/07/91)
From the {Newark, NJ Star-Ledger}, Monday 4 Mar 91.
AT&T beats shifting sands to open phone links.
By KEVIN H. RICHARDSON
Residents of Kuwait City can call the United States for the first
time since shortly after the Iraqi invasion, despite terrain that
sometimes seems to have a mind of its own.
AT&T announced yesterday that it was able to begin providing lines
for outgoing calls on Saturday, starting about 8:15 p.m. Kuwaiti time
(12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time).
But the company said callers experienced an interruption in service
about twelve hours later. After a thorough investigation, the
company's technical experts determined the source of the problem.
"The whole system was sitting on sand, and the sand shifted,"
explained spokesman James Lowell.
The movement of the sand had resulted in a misalignment between the
22-foot satellite dish being used to send the calls and the Intelsat
satellite onto which the calls were bounced before reaching the United
States.
It took AT&T engineers about 3 1/2 hours to realign and stabilize
the satellite dish, which had been brought into the Kuwaiti capital
from Saudi Arabia on Friday. The dish has been operative since then.
Lowell said the equipment being used in Kuwait, which will transmit
120 calls simultaneously to the United States, is state of the art.
The system, developed by AT&T's Bell Laboratories, is based on
technology that allows more calls to be "squeezed" onto a single
satellite beam, he said, which means that more calls can be made at
the same time.
"We're the only people in the world with this equipment, which is
why the Kuwaiti government asked us to set this up," Lowell said.
He said the AT&T system was equipped with its own generator. Kuwait
City remained without electricity.
Lowell said AT&T employees in Kuwait reported that since the
service began hundreds of people have been standing in line for the
phones, which are located in the Mishre district telephone exchange
building.
It is mostly Kuwaiti residents who have been using the service,
although five of the lines are reserved for reporters.
AT&T is charging $1.15 a minute for calls from Kuwait to the United
States, plus a $3.25 service charge for collect calls or a $3.50
service charge far, calls made person to person.