Click for more photos

According to the foreign media sources, the Telecom Regulatory Council of Saudi Arabia announced ten shortlist candidates, including China Telecom, American Verizon, Pakistan Worldcall, and Indian MTNL, to be in a bidding race for the rights to establish a fixed telephone services in Saudi Arabia. STC is the sole fixed telephone operator and thus the bidding dispute is believed to be the initial step to a break of the monopoly of the fixed telephone sector in Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia intends to issue another 3G mobile plate, which has attracted nine bids from nine international companies, including the Egyptian Orascom, the Kuwaiti MTC, and the South Afican MTN. Currently, mobile operators are owned by the Saudi Arabia Telecom and Mobily, both of which are installed by the  Erricsson and HSDPA networks. The later, a network invented by Huawei, is a well-known Chinese software provider.

According to Sultan bin Mohammed, the spokesman of the Telecom Regulatory Council of Saudi Arabia, the final candidate will be selected shortly and more than one fixed telephone service provider will be chosen.

At present, the majority of the earnings of the telecommunication sector in Saudi Arabia are derived from mobile telephone businesses. The earnings of the mobile phone sector are currently calculated to be at 6.73 billion USD and the revenues for fixed telephone services are 2.4 billion USD. With a population of more than 20 million, mobile subscribers in 2006 hit 13.5 million, up 60% over the previous year.