Manama, 2 July 2006 – The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced today that it is now accepting applications for Internet Exchange licenses. In accordance with the licensing regime in the Kingdom, there will be no restriction on the number of licenses granted.
The Internet Exchange license allows the license holder to establish, operate, manage and maintain an internet exchange. In other words, this license allows interested companies to establish these exchanges on a commercial basis whereby Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can connect to them for a fee. Under the Telecommunications Law there is no longer the obligation on ISPs in Bahrain to connect to any Internet Exchange. It will be left to each ISP to decide whether or not to connect to an Internet Exchange.
It should be noted that this license does not cover the provision of voice calls – a different type of license is required for providing voice services. Currently, there is only one internet exchange in the Kingdom - the Bahrain Internet Exchange (BIX), which was established in 2003 by Decree No. 47 of 2003. BIX was established as per the requirement in the Telecommunications Law and had an exclusivity period until April 2006, up to which time no other licenses could be granted.
The initial fees for the Internet Exchange license will be BD 1,000, and 1% of the annual turnover thereafter. The TRA will be following the same process as outlined in the Telecommunications Law for assessing licensing applications and deciding on whether to grant the license or reject the application.
The TRA has also issued a guidance note together with the relevant application form on the new license which is available through its website (www.tra.org.bh). The generic form of the license itself is also available through the TRA’s website.
About the TRA
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) was established by Legislative Decree No. 48 of 2002 promulgating the Telecommunications Law. The TRA is an independent body and its duties and powers include, among other things, protecting the interests of subscribers and users and promoting effective and fair competition among existing and new licensed operators. More information regarding the TRA can be viewed at www.tra.org.bh
July 4th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Basically all the BIX did…was nothing. Even though it was setup to make things easier and eventually bring down the price for us consumers.
July 4th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
I’m a bit surprised you brought this press release even though it has nothing to do with Batelco.. the fact is by Law the TRA has went ahead and started to offer IX licenses. the thing I dont get is why in God’s name does Bahrain need ‘unlimited’ numbers of IX’s??? Not a lot of countries around the world have IX’s anyway and the ones who do have 1 or 2 at the most..
and Tariq in the GDN mentioning that ‘net rates to drop’ or something is a bit grossly mistated only because IX’s provide bandwidth to ISP’s and the ISP will ‘repackage’ the bandwidth and sell it to the consumer.. Now we don’t know whether ISP’s will infact take advantage of low bandiwdth charges and somewhat transfer it to the user. In fact ISP’s will keep the margins high enough and competitive enough for themselves, hence consumers might not see ‘net rates drops’ after all. the one entity in Bahrain who can have a direct price impact which consumers will feel are the TRA. so for the people who want net rates to drop and providers are not listening: GO TO THE TRA!
And about Batelco 10BD and 5BD packages.. TRA’s not approving those rates because those rates are defined as ‘anti-competitive’. It’s simply immature of Batelco to suddenly lower prices when they rightly know competition is knocking on their doors. Only when competition does arrive (when this stupid access problem is solved by the TRA) will u see prices going down (or the TRA will find a way.. i.e. placing price caps, ceilings, floors.. whatever they call them these days
July 7th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Access is coming out in a few days which will ALLOW ISPs to buy from Internet Exchagnes….. This should change everything - watch Batelco start crying and suing
July 9th, 2006 at 11:09 am
but so far there is just one IX, and that’s BIX, are there any other IX’s in Bahrain that we do not know about?
July 10th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
what good will this make???? for us
July 10th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Hey guys, yesterday MenaTelecom’s first retail outlet opened at GOSI Complex (also known as مجمع التأمنيات)
Perhaps they’l start offering intarweb services soon?