For effective competition in the telecommunications sector, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has approved Reference Access and Interconnection Offers (RAIOs) of two dominant licensees – Omantel and Ooredoo.
Under the RAIOs, many new wholesale services will be available to competing licensees. Prices of many wholesale services have been rationalised based on the cost models developed by TRA as well as models submitted by Omantel and Ooredoo.
Mobile call termination rate, which currently stands at 15bz per min, shall be reduced to 4bz per min in a phased manner over four years. The mobile call origination rate has been reduced from 16.6bz per min to 10.54bz per min.
These RAIOs are available on respective licensees’ websites. The licensees have been given two months’ time to replace their existing wholesale agreements with new agreements in accordance with the approved RAIOs.