Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced the issuance of the Regulation on Permitting, Installation, Upgrading and Maintenance of Public Radiocommunications Stations.

This regulation was developed in coordination with the Municipalities Affairs, Civil Aviation Affairs, Supreme Council for the Environment, General Directorate of Civil Defence and other concerned government entities.

Each of the stakeholders established its criteria and conditions that the telecom operators shall consider in order to allow TRA to issue the final permits to deploy the Public Radiocommunications Stations (PRSs).

This Regulation aims to regulate the PRSs situation in the Kingdom by applying the requirements and conditions stipulated in the Regulation when designing, deploying, development and maintenance of PRSs according to Decree No. 48 of 2002 (“Telecommunications Law”) and the Prime Ministerial Decision No. 45 of 2015 as well as the laws, regulations and technical policies related to health, safety and design issued by the Government of Bahrain.

According to this regulation, TRA will be the point of contact between the telecommunications network operators and the concerned entities to ensure that the policies and procedures related to designing, deploying, development and maintenance of PRSs are unified, the emission of the electromagnetic fields are within the agreed thresholds to protect the public safety and environment and the procedures for choosing the locations to deploy the PRSs are transparent with the public.

Based on this regulation, the areas in Bahrain are categorized into zoning where each zone is linked to specific types of PRSs allowed to be deployed in each zone, provided that the public and the concerned entities are notified and consulted before deploying PRSs.

The regulation also aims to rectify the unpermitted existing PRSs as well as to ensure that there is no unnecessary multiplicity of the infrastructure and facilities of PRSs by encouraging the sharing of PRSs between operators.  

“Prior to the issuance of the provisions of the Prime Ministerial Decision No. 45 of 2015, the deployment of the PRSs was not clearly, not comprehensively regulated. As part of TRA’s keenness to fulfil and achieve the tasks entrusted to it through the Decision 45, TRA developed this Regulation in coordination with the concerned government entities to regulate the PRSs situation in the Kingdom of Bahrain, as it will engage the public in choosing the locations to deploy the PRSs,” said Mohammed Alnoaimi, TRA’s technical & operations director.

“This will give confidence to the public that the PRSs deployment is being regulated and monitored. The issuance of this Regulation will also enable TRA to commence rectification of the unpermitted PRSs situation,” he added. - TradeArabia News Service