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.
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