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NEWS

Bahrain imposes "temporary" Wifi licenses

A story we missed during our summer recess: on 14 August, Bahrain's telecom regulator imposed a "temporary" licensing requirement on all Wifi networks, public and private, after years of allowing noncommercial and private Wifi nets to be unlicensed.

According to a TradeArabia News Service report, TRA's general director Andreas Avgousti said, "This licence is temporary as the TRA with the Transportation Ministry are in the process of formulating their final policy on all telecom spectrum related issues, which will include WiFi frequencies and their licensing. As with all TRA decisions, we will carry out a consultation on the proposals and in due course announce the final spectrum policy to the public as soon as the decision is made..."

TRA's notice about the license is online here in English. Click here for the English version of the license.

Since the duration of the Wifi license is only 3 months, the review and consultation could be wrapped up by mid-November.

[Wifi: posted 4 September 2005]