Two new private FM radio channels in Oman could start broadcasting within six months, according to a top official of the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). “We have given licences to new private operators for FM channels but we find it difficult to allocate frequencies. They are waiting, so we are trying to work out frequencies that could be allotted to the new private broadcasters,” Colonel Mohsin Alawi Al Hafeedh, a TRA committee member, told Gulf News yesterday on the sidelines of the first regional meeting for the co-ordination of FM channels in Muscat.
“We are trying to work out available resources and frequencies among the countries in this region,” he explained. The meeting is being attended by delegates from the GCC countries, Iran, Iraq and Yemen.
Last October, Oman’s Information Ministry granted licences to OHI and Sabco LLC to start private radio stations. The new FM channels were expected to go on air earlier this year but were delayed. “We don’t want to allocate frequencies that have already been allocated for another country by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),” he reasoned. He said it would be embarrassing to allocate a frequency for a local radio and then realise that it had to be withdrawn.
(Source: Gulf News)
