Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) yesterday announced it has ordered Batelco to reduce some of the prices it charges rival firms to use its network. In a statement, the TRA said despite several debates with Batelco officials on the incumbent operator’s interconnection charges, the regulator “was not satisfied that all charges were fair and reasonable”.
Last night, Batelco told GDN it would not appeal the decision and would comply with the regulator’s demands.
The TRA said it hoped its decision to make Batelco reduce its Reference Interconnection Offer (RIO) to other firms would be passed onto the end user in the form of lower bills.
“The RIO is the basic offer by Batelco to other licensed operators (OLOs) that allows them to provide telecommunications services to their customers as well as connect to Batelco’s network so that their customers can communicate with Batelco’s customers,” the TRA said in its statement.
“The RIO outlines the wholesale rates the OLOs pay to Batelco for terminating the services, where the retail rate that the consumer pays is made up of the OLOs retail costs plus the wholesale charge. Accordingly, any reduction in the wholesale charges of the interconnection services has an impact on the retail rates that the end consumers pay.
“Having reviewed the RIO and having healthy debates with Batelco’s team, TRA was not satisfied that all charges were fair and reasonable,” it continued.
As a result, the TRA has decided that a number of interconnection services charges should be reduced, including: mobile call terminating access by 8.5 per cent, SMS terminating access by 87pc, freephone from a mobile phone by 8.5pc, international fixed call termination by 7.6pc and international mobile call termination by 6.8pc.
TRA general director Alan Horne, explained the regulator’s decision.
“In a liberalised market where licensed operators are entitled to build their own networks, it is important to get all operators’ customers connected. Therefore, the availability of interconnection services is a key issue for operators in order to be able to function competitively.
“We hope that this reduction will be reflected on the retail charges that consumers pay, and give financial incentives to all market players to invest more in telecommunications infrastructure. This will support economic development, and consumers will enjoy the benefits of competition and greater choice,” he said.
Last night Batelco general manager of corporate affairs Ahmed Al Janahi said the firm would do as asked by the industry regulator.
“We have received the order, we are going to comply with the order, and this is a work in progress between us and the TRA,” he said.
Had the firm protested the decision it could have chosen to go to arbitration where its case would be heard by three neutral telecommunications experts, likely to be from abroad.
However, it is known to be an expensive and time-consuming process.
GDN - 31 July, ‘07