TRA fixes price floors for inbound calls
Manama, September 30, 2012
Bahrain's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has fixed price floors for all wholesale international inbound traffic.
The price floors are: 12 fils per minute for calls to fixed subscribers, and 22 fils per minute for calls to mobile subscribers, said a statement.
Wholesale inbound services are supplied by licensed operators in Bahrain to foreign telecommunications operators to enable the completion of international telephone calls to subscribers in Bahrain.
On 26 January 2012, the authority issued for consultation a draft regulation establishing price floors for wholesale inbound services supplied to other GCC operators. Having reviewed the submissions received on the consultation, the authority decided that the price floors should apply to all international inbound traffic.
While the authority generally supports cost-based prices, the circumstances relating to the supply of wholesale inbound services to foreign operators justify the use of above-cost price floors for these specific services, it said.
In particular, in recent years the wholesale charges for these services have been falling, reducing the cost for foreign operators to supply international calls into Bahrain. However, these cost reductions have not been passed through by other GCC operators into their retail call charges.
The authority considers that the price floors will ensure that economic profits will be retained in Bahrain, for the benefit of Bahraini users of telecommunications services.
The authority also considers that the fixed and mobile termination rates applying to international inbound traffic should be cost-based, as these are critical inputs into the supply of wholesale inbound services, it said. - TradeArabia News Service
