I was talking to someone who spent some time working over there and he said
US type plugs, BS1363, Schuko and old BS546 all found in various places and as far as he was aware the system was supplying both voltages and it seemed to depend on who had been involved in the electrification of a particular area. He said you had to be careful what you plugged in as you couldn't guarentee that a European/British outlet meant 220V or that a NEMA outlet meant 127V.. He'd also been warned of 50 and 60hz supplies being used depending on what part of the country you were in so all equipment had to be capable of working on both, just like in Japan.
It's a strange country and it's rather difficult to get any information about anything and censorship etc is taken to extremes. e.g. all internet access is provided through the ministry for communications and is strictly monitored and it's not generally legal to recieve foreign television by satellite.
However, 127V 50Hz is a problematic system as you can't get appliences so in general it's being phased out of use.
Some places, particularly close to North America, simply switched frequency to 60hz and lowered voltage slightly.. which is what I'd expect Saudi Arabia has prob. done, at least officially. Even slightly lowering the voltage without switching frequency would open up a whole range of 110-120V appliences that can function on 50 or 60Hz.
Others are using 127-127 to give compatability with European appliences and gradually moving to 230-0 bit by bit.
Switching frequency is a pretty drastic measure to take though so I would suspect the migration to 230V would be much more common.
[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-29-2003).]
