NPR morning news apparently just reported...

Fri May 23 20:59:44 UTC 2003

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Mike Tancsa wrote:

> 
> 
> A government contract handed out not on technical merit, but for back room 
> political reasons ?  Shocking!
> 
>          ---Mike
> 
> At 01:33 PM 23/05/2003 -0700, Bill Woodcock wrote:
> 
> >     > According to this article, yes they were involved with
> >     > AWCC:
> >     > http://www.afghanwireless.com/news_6apr.html
> >
> >Ouch.  If they were responsible for AWCC, that would hardly seem to be a
> >basis for awarding them another similar contract.

The funny this is at the state agencies I've worked for we were *required*
to go through a bidding procedure prior to getting final approval for a
purchase.  Unless we had an established relationship with a given company
for similar products or services we had to follow the procedures.  I
wouldn't at all be surprised to hear that sometime in the very near future
a lawsuit was filed by various other telcos to try and get a piece of the
pie or get the administration to be fair towards other telcos.  Who says
it has to be a US telco?  Why can't it be a UK telco?

Justin