Irish company providing US military with mobile phone technology

cork | anti-war / imperialism | other press Thursday September 25, 2008 09:24 by John Jefferies Cobh, Co. Cork

According to an article in today's Irish Examiner a Cork based company, Cubic Telecom, is supplying the US military with what it describes as "innotive mobile phone SIM cards" which the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are currently testing.

In yet another example of Irish involvement in work with military applications the product, called the Max-Roam SIM card, "piggybacks the mobile phone service of the country the user is located in but transfers the mobile number to a landline, thus reducing costs significantly".

According to the company's CEO Pat Phelan, quoted in today's Examiner, "At present, the American military has approximately 1.2 million servicemen serving abroad. The SIM card cannot be tracked, so it wouldn’t compromise covert actions".

Mr. Phelan also said, “The SIM cards are also being tested in Africa and Asia by a number of European armies which have peacekeeping forces there,” He then thanked Enterprise Ireland for their "great help".

Mr. Phelan summed up by saying “The beauty of that is you don’t get a horrendous bill later. You can’t overspend on this system and you can top up the credit automatically through the phone,”

So there we have it - more involvement by Irish companies, backed by the Irish taxpayers through Enterprise Ireland getting involved with what is essentially an extension of the arms trade. What scruples will be used in deciding who to sell this technology to?