Six bidders out of nine qualify for the National Fixed Wireless Services licenses auction

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced that the list of Qualified Bidders is as follows:

ATCO Clearwire Telecom Limited
Bahrain Telecommunications Company BSC
Etisalcom Wireless Co WLL
Mena Telecom WLL
MTC-Vodafone, Bahrain BSC
Reliance Communications Limited

This announcement comes after the end of the evaluation process of the business, financial status of the company and technical aspects of the bids by the TRA's dedicated bid-evaluation team. This team was responsible for evaluating the Bids to ensure that they met the Qualification Criteria set out in the Invitation to Tender.

The TRA also prepared an independent review process for Bids deemed by the TRA's evaluation team to have not met the Qualification Criteria. Bids that did not pass the evaluation team's review were automatically re-evaluated by a panel of experts, independent of the TRA.

The expert panel consisted of:
Mr. Peter Alexiadis, a lawyer and Partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Brussels;
Mr. Peter Walker, a telecommunications engineer and independent consultant based in England; and
Mr. Nigel Attenborough, an economist and Director of NERA, London, England.

The ultimate decision of which Bids met the Qualification Criteria was in all cases made by the TRA.

The six Qualified Bidders will now participate in the next stage of the auction process - the opening of the Financial Bids.

The Financial Bids of the six Qualified Bidders will be opened on 13th December 2006. The licenses will be awarded to the Qualified Bidders that have offered the two highest Financial Bids.