Batelco

Batelco was the proud recipient of the award for “NGN Operator of the Year” at the 2nd Annual SAMENA Regional Awards 2009, held in Istanbul, Turkey recently. The organizing committee of SAMENA presented the prestigious telecommunications award to Batelco Chief Executive Bahrain, Mr. Gert Rieder, in recognition of the company’s modern Next Generation Network (NGN), the first of its kind in the world to provide nationwide Broadband coverage.

Mr. Rieder said that he was honoured and delighted to be present to collect the award on behalf of Batelco.

“We were delighted to receive this recognition at such a prestigious event as the Samena awards,” he said, “being acknowledged regionally confirms that we are delivering the right services to meet current needs and supports our investment strategy.” 

Batelco’s Next Generation Network was completed in January, 2009, culminating a process that began in April, 2005, at a cost of $57 million.

“The transfer from Batelco’s legacy network to NGN was achieved due to the company’s pledge to provide services that complement the dynamic relationship between technological innovation and customer demand,” he added.

“The NGN network enables Batelco to deliver information (voice, data and video) to a customer through a single line, giving the service greater speed and capacity”, explained Batelco Chief Technical Officer Ebrahim Zainal.

“A major benefit of the service is that it facilitates the connection of Broadband Internet for new customers within one day, from a process that usually took two weeks prior to migration.

“The new network also allows Batelco to offer various advanced services that previously could not be offered, thus enhancing the basket of products and services we deliver,” Mr. Zainal said.

The implementation of the NGN project was achieved in collaboration with Huawei, the world renowned next generation telecommunications network solutions provider, who partnered Batelco in the transformational journey. The major project required the transfer of tens of thousands of lines from traditional networks to the new network.

“While Batelco crews were hard at work on completing the NGN network, an NGN training facility was established at Batelco’s Knowledge Hub with the assistance of Huawei’s experts, to train the company’s technicians and engineers to run and maintain it,” said Mr. Rieder.

“The introduction of the NGN is part of Batelco’s contribution to the enhancement of the Kingdom’s telecom infrastructure. Our NGN helps us to deliver on our promise to provide affordable broadband access for all of Bahrain’s households and enable an e-lifestyle for all residents,” added Mr. Rieder.