Egypt: Unchanged
by
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Shortly before 3 p.m. Cairo time, two men, appearing very official, wearing galabayahs, and sunglasses, stood at the entrance to the Bab-el-Louk telephone central office. It was June of 1983, a full year after the Arthur D. Little team left Egypt. ARENTO’s new switches were recently cut into service, and all outside plant was installed. Ilham’dilla, God be praised. A line of Egyptian men and women were queued up waiting to enter the building and sign up for the new telephone service. Waiting was their way of life it seemed. “Did you see the new telephone sets we’ll get?” One asked. “I heard we get a colored one, no more black ones, and push-buttons too, Inshallah,” from another person in line. “It’s the latest thing. But we’ve been waiting three years for this. How about you?” a woman asked. “Yep, three years,” another answered. “Well, I’ve been waiting four years from when I put my name in,” a man exclaimed. “What are those men doing at the door, I wonder?” Another person asked. At the entrance, there were the two thieves, Ahmed and Farouk, collecting 100 pounds Egyptian from each customer before letting them step through the door to obtain phone service legally. Baksheesh, it was. Now instead of stealing lead sheath from telephone cables, they had cleaned up their act and the thieves were shaking down their fellow citizens. Egypt Unchanged.
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About the Book
He and his team are sent to Cairo in 1979 to plan the modernization of Egypt’s phone service. Phone service at that point is bad. Most of the time there is no dial tone. They think their work can be accomplished in about nine months, but Willis Culpepper of USAID tells them “Schedules don’t mean a thang here in Egypt.” They learn that ARENTO wants technology transfer, plus system redesign, so the nine months will stretch to a year or two. Working with the Egyptians, they see the sorry state of the telephone system, first in Cairo, then in Alexandria. Underground cables failed because of water seeping into the insulation. In between they visit Cairo’s Souk, Khan El Khalili, and El Alemein. He takes morning runs beside the Pyramids, sometimes enraging the rabid mongrel desert dogs. Bitten, he requires rabies injections. There are no good maps of the cities. His team consults with USAID, and gets the Air Force to do aerial photography of Cairo, and Alexandria. An accelerated course on ESS is given to six Egyptian engineers, and the planning stage is finished at last. Construction contractors are selected through a formal bidding process, and final construction of the upgrade is completed in 1983. Egypt gets the most modern telephone system at the time, but scam artists are still at work at cut-over.
About the Author
The author has a wealth of experience working as a consultant for business, and government clients in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Employed by Booz Allen & Hamilton during the cold war on classified projects, GTE as manager, and researcher, then Arthur D. Little as a consultant to various clients, he participated in the developments from transistors to integrated circuits, the ESS, fiber optics, and cell phones. He was keenly aware of the importance of the people involved in this march of history. People, their attitudes and experiences form the glue bridging the jump from old to new technologies. He found this to be true especially in Egypt and describes the pitfalls, humor, and successes of the American, and Egyptian engineers on a project of fundamental importance to that country.
He received a BS, and MS in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University, and earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1970. As adjunct Professor at Northeastern University, he taught fiber optics technology and systems design in the mid ‘70’s.
He is retired, and resides with his wife Cynthia in Holland, Michigan, They have a son, daughter, and two granddaughters.