Batelco, the leading integrated communications’ provider in Bahrain, completed an ambitious $57 million project to deliver internet access to all residents thus giving the Kingdom the honour of being first nation in the world with countrywide broadband.

The project took a huge leap this week when the final migration from the legacy network to the new NGN (Next Generation Network) was completed, said a Batelco statement.

Batelco chief executive Peter Kaliaropoulos extended praise to all the Batelco employees involved in the project saying it was a proud moment for Batelco and also for the Kingdom.

He also praised Huawei, the world renowned next generation telecommunication network solution providers, who partnered with Batelco in the transformational journey.

“Designing, developing and building Batelco’s state-of-the-art next generation network was a major undertaking by Batelco and Huawei engineers,” said Kaliaropoulos.

“When we embarked on the road to migrate our existing network over to a new network using 21st century technology in 2005, we anticipated that it would take us more than 5 years to implement,” he explained.

“However, through supreme efforts which involved training our engineers with the new skills necessary to understand and implement the new technologies, plus additional investment, we decreased the time frame considerably.”

Batelco general manager networks and IT Ebrahim Zainal explained that the NGN services would facilitate triple play (Voice, Data & Video) on a single line which traditionally only carried voice telephone services.

“Significantly, the service will allow new customers to connect to Batelco Broadband Internet on the same day, from a process that usually took up to one week prior to migration,” he said.

"Batelco’s NGN will deliver our promise to bring affordable broadband access to all of Bahrain’s households making them among the best connected in the world," Zainal noted.

"It will enable an e-lifestyle for all residents sharing information, education and entertainment,” he remarked.

“Batelco will continue to invest significantly in Bahrain’s infrastructure. Our remit is to ensure that residents can avail of world class communications services, and to further improve Bahrain’s competitiveness by positioning the Kingdom as a natural choice for communications intensive companies to locate their regional headquarters,” Kaliaropoulos added.-TradeArabia News Service