MANAMA (WiMAX Day). The tiny Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain has the best of everything, and WiMAX is about to be added to the list. MTC-Vodafone, which is part of the Kuwait-based MTC Group, announced that it plans to launch its WiMAX network next month, and the service will become available commercially in September.

“WiMAX will empower MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) to fulfil all the telecommunication needs of customers, which will greatly enhance the ‘on the move’ experience and the service delivery time, making it ever easier to stay connected anywhere in the Kingdom,” said Dr Ahmed Alshatti, chief operating officer of MTC-Vodafone.

The company, which has been a partner of Vodafone Group since 2002, was awarded a national 3.5 GHz license by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in January 2007, for which the company bid US$14.58 million.

According to a report in ITP News, MTC-Vodafone stated that it would be the first telecoms operator in the Gulf to provide national wireless broadband, and also that MTC-Vodafone in Bahrain is the first network in the MTC Group to launch WiMAX services.

Dr Ahmed Alshatti said that for MTC-Vodafone, “our WiMAX service will offer a superior alternative to standard broadband connectivity,” but the company has not indicated if it will bundle WiMAX with its current services.

A tale of two providers
MTC-Vodafone is not the only company launching WiMAX in Bahrain. Mena Telecom, which also was awarded a license by the TRA in January, announced last week that it is in the final stages of planning its own WiMAX network.

“We are finalising plans to roll out a state-of-the-art WiMAX network,” said Abdulhakeem Al Khayyat, chairman of Mena Telecom and general manager at Kuwait Finance House (Bahrain), in a company press release.

Mena Telecom is a subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House, and in Bahrain the company provides alternative telecommunications services, and is the leading provider of international pre-paid calling cards.

Mena Telecom has a strong foothold in fixed-line telecommunications in Bahrain where it competes mainly with the incumbent Batelco. The company indicated that WiMAX will expand its service offering with “broadband telephony and VoIP bundles; virtual PBX and IP Centrex solutions; Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and data networking solutions; nomadic services and other value-added services such as e-Business and multi-media services.”

The managing director of Mena Telecom, Mr Abdul Razak Jawahery, noted that the deployment of WiMAX in Bahrain would be the biggest development in telecommunications since the introduction of GSM technology more than 20 years ago.