Dubai: Bahrain is set to appoint a consultant to help the telecom authority in designing and detailing the 4G long-term evolution (LTE) licensing process on July 12, an official from the country's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, told Gulf News.
"We will be inviting tenders for 4G LTE spectrum on October 12, and will receive bids in January next year," Mohammad Mahmoud, technical and operations director, TRA Bahrain, said.
The kingdom is preparing for the post 3G mobile services to deliver ultra-high speed broadband communications over mobile networks.
He said the 2.6GHz frequency band is the preferred spectrum for most public mobile operators in the MEA (Middle East ad Africa) and European regions and would become available in two tranches.
Spectrum
The first tranche would be two paired sub-bands of 40MHz which will be freed by the end of this year. A further 30MHz of paired 2.6GHz spectrum will become available by the end of 2014.
Securing this spectrum will place public mobile telecommunications operators in the kingdom in a good position to provide the latest LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies.
The evaluation of bids will take place from February to March 2013 and will seek to determine the kingdom's public mobile spectrum requirements for 2020 and beyond. It is anticipated that the spectrum review findings will be announced during 2015.
Bahrain has three mobile operators — Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco), Kuwait's Zain and Saudi Telecom Co (Viva).
The kingdom had 1.7 million mobile subscribers with a penetration rate of 133 per cent last year while fixed-line penetration increased marginally to reach 18.3 per cent.
Mahmoud said telecoms accounts for 4.4 per cent of Bahrain's economy.
Due to the tough competition among operators to boost profitability, growth is expected to be limited by the continued discounting of inactive lines and a shift in focus to high-value postpaid subscriptions.
