MANAMA: Bahrain has ranked fourth globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has said.

Responding to social media posts that referred to an article claiming that Bahrain had retreated five places to rank 26th in the mobile Internet speed index, the kingdom’s telecoms regulator said 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 organisation.

The TRA said Bahrain has ranked fourth globally in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) according to a 2018 United Nations’ report and not the International Telecommunication Union’s report as the article claims.

Bahrain’s mobile subscription rate then was 140 per cent of the total population and it had the third rank globally with an estimated 98pc of Internet users.

The TII 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, said the authority.

The latest report published by the United Nations in 2020 shows that mobile penetration in Bahrain was 119pc, whereas the percentage of Internet users in the kingdom has reached 99.7pc.

According to the International Telecommunication Union’s data, Bahrain ranks first globally in that metric.

As for the number of subscriptions, the number of mobile subscriptions was 1,748,672 by the end of 2020, while the number of fixed line subscriptions reached 220,435 by end-2020.

The number of Internet service subscriptions was measured at 2,009,605 by the end of 2020.

The TRA emphasised it remains keen to enhance cooperation with local newspapers and social media accounts and is always available to provide answers to all queries related to its work and the most prominent developments in the telecommunications market in the kingdom.

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