Batelco leads the drive to accelerate Bahrain's e-Competitiveness

'ICT and e-services can complement the Kingdom's financial sector in accelerating Bahrain's future economic growth. To enable businesses and Ministries to embrace the advantages of electronically delivered services, the availability and cost of high speed broadband connectivity is crucial. Batelco has introduced new managed data services and reduced its prices for business broadband by 50%,' announced Batelco Chief Executive, Peter Kaliaropoulos at a press conference today (June 11th).

'To further strengthen Bahrain's position as a leading business hub in the Middle East and the Kingdom's e-Government strategy, Batelco has introduced the most competitive rates for high speed dedicated internet access across the GCC. Such massive reduction in business rates follows a similar initiative last year when Batelco introduced a BD10 monthly internet service package for residential consumers,' said Mr. Kaliaropoulos.

'Online delivery of services and information by Ministries and businesses, not only creates a sustainable knowledge driven economy but also creates high value jobs and encourages innovation in creating and delivering content via portals and, fixed and wireless devices.'

Bahrain is uniquely positioned to take advantage of such knowledge based economy and complement the Kingdom's long standing leading financial services sector and freest economy in the Arab world. Fixed and wireless broadband technologies introduced by Batelco and now, extremely competitive internet access services, are crucial components for regional leadership in e-services,' elaborated Mr. Kaliaropoulos.

Significant, multi million dinar investments in Bahrain's telecommunications infrastructure, near completion Kingdom-wide New Generation broadband access Network, new investments in Batelco's data centres and internet platform will allow new services and reduced tariffs to be launched to the market.

'Batelco understands the needs of its customers for faster, cheaper and reliable broadband services. We are offering new and upgraded deals for business customers under the theme 'Business Benefits' with tariff reductions, new services and better service,' said Batelco Director Business Marketing & International Operations Adel Daylami.

Business customers can look forward to tariff reductions of up to 50% for key service offerings. To ensure business and educational establishments benefit from the most competitive prices in the region, Batelco has reduced the rates of its Inet Dedicated Access service by up to 50%. Inet Dedicated Access Service offers round-the-clock, highly reliable Internet access at speeds of up to 100Mbps.

Batelco is also keeping the needs of small businesses in mind with a competitively priced Broadband Business package, which provides Internet access for single-users. Rental for this package will be reduced from BD40 to only BD20 per month.

Among Batelco's newly launched services is Managed inet Broadband which offers business customers high speed Broadband with unlimited internet access and 24 x 7, remote router management plus a sub-net of 8 FREE IP addresses.

Mr. Kaliaropoulos mentioned that Batelco has submitted revised tariffs with the TRA to allow it to offer such price reductions to business customers.

'Batelco is confident that the TRA, following careful consideration of our submission, will approve the tariffs that we have proposed, without conditions. Businesses, Ministries, Educational institutions and Charities will receive a significant benefit through 50% lower internet tariffs. Customers will benefit, competition will be stimulated and Bahrain's economy and competitiveness will also ultimately improve,' noted Mr Kaliaropoulos.

'Competition in the Kingdom's communications sector will continue to intensify. Batelco operates now in 6 competitive markets across the Middle East. Customers in Bahrain will continue to increasingly experience better service, lower prices and greater choice. Such competition not only ensures customers benefit but in our case, creates an opportunity for Batelco to transform its operations and company culture into one of the best performing and most competitive companies in the Middle East,' concluded Mr. Kaliaropoulos.