TRA office to regulate telecom towers

Manama : The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has opened a new Telecom Mast Permitting Office, which will be responsible for regulating and rectifying telecom towers. 

The office will be responsible for coordinating with the relevant government bodies, including the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, the Supreme Council for Environment and the Civil Aviation Affairs to obtain required permits and No-Objection Certificates from these bodies prior to granting the final permit by TRA for deploying telecom towers. 

This will ensure the optimal implementation of the provisions of the Prime Ministerial Decision No. 45 of 2015 (Decision 45) that promulgate the regulation concerning public radio-communications stations. Based on Decision 45, TRA appointed a consulting firm to develop a framework and regulations for the deployment of telecom towers and the establishment of a specialized office to ensure the implementation of these regulations. TRA recently completed the development of engineering conditions and standards related to the technical and aesthetic aspects, in coordination with the relevant government bodies, to deploy telecom towers according to both the provisions of Decision 45 and the best international engineering practices. 

A specialized technical team will carry out the approval processes and ensure that operators comply with all new engineering conditions and standards prior to granting final permits. The special team will conduct site visits to ensure that telecom towers comply with the general safety requirements and engineering specifications and audit technical information and sites of existing and planned telecom towers. The team will also coordinate with operators to implement the plan to rectify unpermitted telecom towers to ensure that all telecom towers comply with the new engineering conditions, standards and specifications. TRA uses an electronic system to manage the telecom towers permit process and to process applications for tower sharing between operators.

 “One of TRA’s strategic objectives is to develop regulations aiming at ensuring a secure and advanced telecommunications infrastructure,” said TRA’s Technical & Operations Director, Eng. Mohammed Alnoaimi. “In view of the importance of telecom towers as an important component of the telecom infrastructure and the TRA’s insistence on deploying  towers according to the best international engineering standards and practices in this field, TRA has contracted with a consulting firm to provide consultancy, technical and operational support to the Telecom Mast Permitting Office.