Company History                                                                                                                                      click here. . . WESA in the New Millennium 

WESA was initially founded in 1977 as a strategic business unit of Western Electric International and AT&T. The following year Western Electric Saudi Arabia Co., Ltd. was founded as a joint venture company between Abdullah Said Bugshan & Bros. and AT&T International. Initially, WESA provided technical support services for AT&T products in the commercial sector as well as for major telecom expansion projects associated with the MoPTT. These projects included SAIK-I and SAIK-II (Saudi Arabia Intra-Kingdom) installation and maintenance of 1AESS Central Offices for KAIA and KKIA the International Airports in Jeddah and Riyadh respectively.

Over time, WESA continued to grow exponentially and successfully completed large-scale projects associated with Saudi Arabian Basic Industries (SABIC), Saudi ARAMCO, Motorola International, Raytheon, Royal Saudi Air Force, Royal Saudi Navy, Operation Peace Sun, Peace Shield, the United States Military, and the Royal Saudi Military Forces during Operations Desert Storm.

During the Gulf war Western Electric maintenance teams were deployed with both the U.S. and Saudi Military Units to provide the support necessary to keep the lines of communication open during this critical time. WESA technical support crews were also in Kuwait City less than 24 hours after liberation on February 26, 1991 to immediately begin the arduous restoration process to rebuild Kuwait's devastated Telecommunication Network. Telecommunications service was restored to high priority clients including the Emir and the Crown Prince, the Council of Ministers, and various ministries including Education, Communication, Foreign Affairs, Central Tender and the U.S. Army in record time. Other complex projects include Service Provider Earth Station installation, operations, and maintenance.

With regard to outside plant construction, WESA has installed over 7,500 miles of fiber and copper cable Kingdom-wide. In the realm of structured cabling, WESA has installed approximately 800,000 Voice/Data outlets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, more than all of the competition combined.

During the 1990s, WESA was extensively involved with OSP construction on 15 RSAF Air Bases. This was known as the Peace Shield Project and AT&T / WESA's portion was completed in 1996. Work on this project continued in 2001 under the auspices of INE, an economic offset company in Saudi Arabia. WESA performed additional works at the RSAF Airbases in Riyadh, Jeddah, Khamis Mushayt and Dharan. This work consisted of OSP Single and Multimode fiber and Lucent Structured Cabling Voice / Data outlets and related hardware for the LAN/WAN infrastructure.

WESA has also installed, tested, commissioned and maintained large PABX's and related infrastructure for King Faisal Specialist Hospital that consists of approximately 15,000 extensions (one of the world's largest) and 3 large PABXs for the Royal Saudi Navy Underground Command Centers (UCC).

We currently have installation, maintenance, and technical support contracts in place with the United State Government (OPM SANG Eskan), ARAMCO, and SANG COM GPT among many others. WESA is an approved STC contractor and has a variety of projects with STC in the voice, data, video and Internet services provisioning arena.

We currently have an imbedded customer base of over 400 PABXs, and over 3,000 hybrid key systems Kingdom-wide. We also are currently engaged in the engineering, design, supply and installation of the Voice and Data infrastructure at the Kingdom Tower Center.

Furthermore WESA provided most of the technical support services associated with TEP7 (Y2K upgrade). This entailed the installation and cut-over of 117 5ESS Central Office Switches Kingdom-wide. WESA also decommissioned the dismantled the outmodeled Central Office Switching equipment.

Another similar project completed by WESA is the design, installation and commissioning of KACST (King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology) which entailed a large PABX with OSP / ISP Voice and Data applications.

WESA has a fully developed infrastructure in place with large-scale facilities in Riyadh and fully staffed regional offices in Jeddah and Al-Khobar respectively. These facilities provide full training services for our own staff and end-users alike. WESA provided significant (over 2,200 people of various disciplines) resources and equipment to the TEP6 project throughout KSA. We provided complete maintenance and operational support for the GSM Network in Saudi Arabia over a 5-Year period. The company has also provided installation and maintenance of Integrated Access Terminals (IAT) for gateways of various Telcos in 16 locations throughout the Middle East. Among other services WESA provides are I&M support and knowledge transfer.

WESA in the New Millennium