Seef District, Kingdom of Bahrain: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority would like to emphasize its constant keenness to enhance positive cooperation between TRA, local newspapers and social media accounts. In this context, TRA always seeks to answer all inquiries related to the work of TRA and the most prominent developments in the telecommunications market in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
In response to what was circulated between various social media accounts regarding the article entitled "The UAE ranks 1st globally .. Bahrain retreats 5 places and ranks 26th in the mobile Internet speed index." TRA would like to clarify that the ranking used is based on results published by www.speedtest.net website for April 2021 and not on an annual report published by a related international organization.
With regard to the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), it is calculated and published by the United Nations, not the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). No report has been issued by the ITU for this year. Bahrain has ranked 4th globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) according to the 2018 United Nations’ report and not the International Telecommunication Union’s report. The latest report published by the United Nations in 2020 shows Bahrain’s global position in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII). You can refer to the below link.
https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data/Country-Information/id/13-Bahrain
With regard to mobile penetration, it reaches 119% according to 2020 data. You can refer to the below link.
https://tra-website-pro01.s3mesouth1.amazonaws.com/Media/Documents/Market-indicators/20210302115621972_ulvwasre_pyj.pdf
The latest data for 2020 shows that the percentage of Internet users in the Kingdom of Bahrain has reached 99.7%. According to the International Telecommunication Union’s data, Bahrain ranks 1st globally. You can refer to the link below:
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/2021/PercentIndividualsUsingInternet.xlsx
With regard the number of subscriptions, the number of mobile subscriptions reached 1,748,672 by the end of 2020. The number of fixed line subscriptions reached 220,435 by the end of 2020. The number of Internet service subscriptions reached 2,009,605 by the end of 2020. The report below explains this:
https://tra-website-prod-01.s3-me-south-1.amazonaws.com/Media/Documents/Market-indicators/20210302115621972_ulvwasre_pyj.pdf
TRA also requests all newspapers and social media accounts to take the news from its correct source and refer to TRA to verify the news.