Bahrain Mirror: The joint technical committees between the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and Batelco started working on establishing the national optical fibre network.

Head of the TRA Board of Directors, Mohammed Al-Amer (who is known as one of Ahmad Atiyatollah hands and whose name was mentioned in Al-Bandar report) stated on April 7 that "there is a work plan and a program set for implementing the national optical fibre network that would present services and infrastructure to all the communication companies to provide data services in a fast way."

As for the needs of taking such a step, various information revealed that it "marks the beginning of the entrance of another company that manages the ground network and that has the advantage to be directly accessed by the National Security Apparatus and Bahrain Defence Force for different censorship purposes."

Sources in the telecommunication sector said "Batelco will have to open its ground network for the competing operators by allowing them to provide communication services through the ground network. It is expected that Batelco's ground processes will be separated in a new company that will be assigned to manage ground facilities according to competitive fees," local newspapers reported.

Information indicated that "all the cameras installed on streets, work places, residential areas and those in all kinds of institution will be linked to the ground network, just as landline phones are linked to wired network".

Arabic Version