“Our licence is for 10 years and we will invest $400m in Iraq. Our expected revenue in 10 years is $1.5bn,” says Wilson Varghese, chief executive officer at Kalimat.

The network will compete directly with the fixed-line network owned by Iraq’s Communications Ministry.

Unlike the state-owned network, Kalimat will use wireless technology to enable customers to make phone calls, surf the internet over high-speed connections and use data services.

Kalimat will supply customers with wireless terminals for their homes. Although the terminals could be used to create a mobile phone network, Kalimat will not offer mobile services as it banned from doing so under the terms of its licence.