Back to Baghdad
Well, a couple of weeks ago I got offered to go back to Baghdad with a 12/15 departure date. The last time I was there we had recommended that the ITPC (Iraq Telecommunications and Post Company) be privatized -- MCI or whomever could roll in and have everything working in a relatively straightforward manner. Not too surprisingly, however, those in the Iraq government would like to keep it government owned (Rick's first law of governments: they always get bigger) so they would like to do this themselves.
Well, we're here to serve, so my project this time would be to straighten out their billing systems -- which really means put in a new one. They used to bill through the Post Office, the mailman walked around and collected cash from people and gave them a receipt. Given the security situation that hasn't worked for over a year, so the whole thing needs to move to a prepay model (go somewhere, pay your money, and the phone gets turned on).
This time we live *in* the Green Zone have even have a PSD (personal security detail) while traveling around inside the GZ, it's a lot safer than the situation last time when we were living outside.
I'm looking forward to going and, since the trip is over the holidays, where not much gets done anyway, it wouldn't be too disruptive to Connexed (startup #2 that I'm working on). However I heard today that the trip might be postponed, I hope to know more soon. I'll keep you posted.