AT&T Co and its Brazilian business partner say three telecommunications rivals tried to block them out of the Brazilian telecommunications market: the dispute is over a bid to supply state-controlled Telebras with $200m worth of switches, and, Reuter reports from Buenos Aires, moments before the bid was due to close earlier this month – and only one day after AT&T’s local joint venture was permitted by Telebras to enter the bidding – the Brazilian operations of NEC Corp, Ericsson Telecomunicacoes SA and Siemens AG asked that the process be scrapped, asking that local manufacturing be included, a condition that AT&T would not be able to meet; Telebras rejected the request to suspend.
