(b) The Authority undertakes in carrying out its duties Telecommunications services in the manner best calculated to: 1 (c) relating to protect the interests of Subscribers and Users in respect of: • the tariffs charged for services. • availability and provision of service. • quality of services. • protection of personal particulars and privacy of services. 2 promote effective and fair competition among new and existing Licensed Operators. 3 ensure, when assessing applications involving provision of Public Telecommunications Services, that any applicant, or any Person who is assigned the responsibility of the provision of such services, shall be able to provide that service. The Authority shall have the power to: 1 issue regulations, orders and determinations1 as may be necessary for the implementation of the provisions of this Law, including in particular regulations, orders and determinations in connection with technical standards and rules, Licences and payment of Licence fees, frequency migration, accounting separation relating to each service, Interconnection, Access to the network and its facilities, services’ tariffs, access to, acquisition and removal of encumbrances on real property, numbering, Universal Service, the promotion of competition, equipment approvals, compliance with License conditions and all other matters covered by this Law or the resolution of which is necessary to give effect to the provisions of this Law. 2 monitor and investigate compliance with the provisions of this Law and any regulations, orders and determinations made hereunder, both on its own initiative and at the request of any Person, and making such orders and determinations as are necessary to ensure compliance in accordance with this Law and any such regulations, orders and determinations including ordering a Licensee to be restructured into two or more entities, if necessary. 1 Note that the Arabic word “‫ ”ﻗﺮار‬is used in the Arabic version of the Telecommunications Law for the word “Determination” in this sentence. “‫ ”ﻗﺮار‬can be translated into the English words of “Decision”, “Determination” or “Resolution”. In practice TRA Bahrain has tended to use these English words to define specific legal instruments, whereby “Decisions” or “Determinations” are used for the results of a regulatory process (e.g. a Decision on Merger Clearance) or regulatory action (e.g. a Determination of Dominance or Significant Market Power) and where “Resolutions” have been used for mainly administrative decisions such as setting of license fees or business hours. In preparing this English translation of the Telecommunications Law TRA has attempted used the word it considers most suitable to define the instrument based upon its purpose in each instance of the use of the Arabic word “‫”ﻗﺮار‬. This does not prevent TRA from amending its practices in the future. For purposes of interpretation the Arabic text shall prevail. -11Translation dated 12 April 2009 This is an unofficial translation of the Law. It is provided for information purposes only. Reliance may only be placed upon the official Arabic version of the Law published in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Any comments on this translation will be gratefully received by the Authority. Please email any comments to: contact@tra.org.bh