TRA to perform quality of service checks on mobile services

The measurements will be conducted by Directique, a specialized consulting firm entirely dedicated to mobile telecommunications test and measurements.

TRA's General Director Mr. Alan Horne stated: "This will be the first measurement campaign of this kind performed in the Kingdom, TRA and Directique will be performing extensive measurements that will be shared and reviewed with the mobile operators as part of a mutual learning process with the objective to progressively improve the quality of service of all mobile services. We aim to publish the results by the beginning of next year."

Mr. Olivier Brunot, General Manager of Dierctique upon appointment by TRA said:

"We are an independent and specialized leading consulting firm entirely dedicated to Quality of Service improvement. We are very proud to conduct the first mobile Quality of Service survey for TRA in Bahrain. Experience suggests that based on our work over 15 years with Regulators and Operators, that this survey will support a long term significant improvement in the Quality of Service for consumers."

Mr. Eric Dunand, TRA Technical Advisor at TRA who is leading this project said: "We had a very good Kick off meeting and the operators were very receptive and interested in the proposed Quality of Service measurements survey. The real benefit that we see will reside in the opportunity to identify any potential issue or difference between services and openly discuss and review it with the operators. For this purpose detailed measurement results will be provided respectively to Batelco and Zain in a very transparent manner."

The quality of service measurement approach from Directique, developed over a long term experience, uses SIM cards and publicly available handsets available in any Batelco and Zain shop.

These will be used with the objective to measure and evaluate end user experience in a situation as close as possible to a real end user.

Tests will be conducted in doors, outdoors and in car (drive test) throughout the Kingdom to assess the quality of the Voice, quality of SMS and MMS and quality of Data through FTP, email and web browsing.

The measurement campaign is planed to take place during November, before the official launch of STC service that will therefore not be included in the measurements however results will provide a target to the new entrant regarding the level of quality delivered by Batelco and Zain.