Key milestone for Government's Fourth National Telecom Plan

Manama, Apr. 9 (BNA): Bahrain Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has launched the final consultation on the reference offer of the new separated entity. This consultation marks a key milestone in the TRA’s delivery of the Batelco Separation Project, a central telecommunications policy objective of the Government’s Fourth National Telecoms Plan ("NTP4"). The new wholesale-only entity (NBNetco BSC) will be formed by the separation of Batelco into two distinct legal entities. NBNetco will operate and deploy the single national broadband infrastructure (NBN) in Bahrain on the basis of which all telecom services including 5G will be provided and thus it is vital that service providers are granted access to the NBN on fair and reasonable terms. "It took over 70 meetings over the course of three years to achieve this key milestone," said Shaikh Nasser bin Mohamed Al Khalifa, Acting General Director of TRA. "Consumers can look forward to innovative and advanced broadband services, lower prices, better quality of service and more benefits. With NBN available for wholesale, there is room for more market players to benefit from this national network and compete on a level playing field, and consumers will be able to reap the rewards of more innovative services." The deadline for responses to this consultation is April 25, 2019. The TRA will then review responses in preparing its Final Order on the Separated Entity Reference Offer, which will be issued in May of this year.