Bahrain Confirms Details for 3rd Mobile License Auction

Bahrain's telecoms regulator, the TRA has announced the final details for an auction for the country's third mobile license.

TRAÃ's Chairman of the Board, Mr. Mohammed Al Amer, commented: "The Board had endorsed and formally approved the competitive award, by auction, of the third mobile licence, and has now approved the publication of the final Tender Documents.", adding that "the BoardÃ's approval to publish the Tender Documents keeps TRA on track to complete the process by the end of this year".

TRAÃ's Director of Market and Competition, Mr. Rob Middlehurst, who is leading the award process, stated: "The auction will take the form of a multi-stage qualification process and a final financial round for suitably qualified bidders".

Mr Middlehurst went on to say: "In the interest of transparency the Tender Documents contain all of details of the pre-qualification requirements, as well as the technical evaluation criteria and thresholds to be used for bid evaluation. The Tender Documents were published yesterday September 16th on the TRA website, and are downloadable free of charge to prospective bidders after completing a brief electronic form. In order to be eligible to bid, prospective bidders are required to register and pay a non-refundable fee of BD 2500 no later than 15:00hrs on 13th October. Registration will also allow prospective bidders to seek clarification to the information provided in the documents, and the closing date for submitting questions is 16th October at 15:00 hrs. The final deadline to receive bids is no later than 15:00hrs on 13th November. After reviewing the initial pre-qualification information submitted by the bidders, TRA will announce on 18th November the names of the bidders who have passed the pre-qualification review as well as the date for opening the financial offers of those bidders."

The country's two current operators are Zain (formerly MTC Vodafone) and Batelco. Figures from the Mobile World show that the country ended H1 '08 with just over 1.2 million subscribers - which represents a population penetration level of 167% - if you ignore the large migrant and ex-pat population. Including them brings the population penetration level down to around the 98% mark.

Posted to the site on 16th September 2008