Furat Phone ready to cover southern Iraq in 45 days

NASSIRIYA / IraqiNews.com: The director of Iraq ’s Furat Phone Company for communications said on Friday that his company will be ready to cover the whole southern region of Iraq in 45 days to provide services to around nine million persons. “The company will be ready in 45 days too provide services to nine million citizens living in Thi-Qar, Muthanna, Wassit, Basra and Missan provinces,” Khaleel Khafaji told IraqiNews.com. “The company started to set up 27 new towers in the pre mentioned provinces to increase the number of towers in service too 57 which cover around 1/3 of Iraq ’s area,” he explained. “Furat Phone will start partnership negotiations as of next year with a group of Qatari-Bahraini communications companies which want to invest in Iraq ’s communication market,” he also said. Thi-Qar, 380 km south of Baghdad , has an area of 12,900 square kilometers (4,980.7 sq mi). In 2003 the estimated population of the governorate was 1,454,200 people. Thi-Qar was the second Iraqi province where security responsibilities were transferred from the Multi-National Force (MNF) to the Iraqis. The province’s capital is the city of al-Nassiriya. It also includes the ancient Sumerian ruins of Ur , Eridu, Lagash and Ngirsu. Before 1976 the province was known as al-Muntafiq. SH (S) 1