The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the Kingdom of Bahrain issued a Consultation Document entitled, ‘Award of Individual Licenses and associated Frequency Licenses for the delivery of mobile telecommunications services in the 900, 1800, 1900, 2100 and 2600MHz frequency bands in the Kingdom of Bahrain’.
The document advises interested parties of TRA’s intention to conduct a licensing process that will result in the award of licenses for the provision of state-of-the-art mobile telecommunications services. TRA seeks views on the proposed award process, requirements and license conditions.
Government policy in the shape of the Third National Telecommunications Plan includes a call for the provision of efficiently and competitively provided mobile telecommunications services, such as the internationally defined Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, as a matter of National priority and that appropriate radio frequencies must be made available for the purpose of enabling the introduction of such LTE-based services.
TRA’s main objectives in designing a competitive license award process is to foster the availability of high speed mobile broad-band, while ensuring healthy competition and investment in the mobile market. TRA together with Frontier Economics has been engaged in the design of a transparent, non-discriminatory, competitive and technology neutral award process, building on the results of a spectrum consultation and the development of a public telecommunications spectrum release plan.
Specifically the Consultation Document seeks views on the award objectives and the use of a Simultaneous Multiple Round Ascending (SMRA) auction process with a pre-qualification stage. Opinions are also sought on spectrum packaging, spectrum caps, reserve prices and the obligations to be imposed on licensees.
Responses to the Consultation Document, which is downloadable from http://www.tra.org.bh, are required not later than [27 December 2012]. Subsequently a Report will be issued and an Invitation to Tender document released. The tender document will establish the procedures, terms and conditions of the licence award process, including, amongst other things, the detailed process rules, timelines and draft licence documentation. TRA currently envisages awarding licences process to be completed by Q1 2013.