1981 - BATELCO is born - The national and international services were brought together to form Batelco which by then hosted an impressive 45,627 telephone and 1,647 telex customers.

Batelco established, with Cable & Wireless taking a 40 per cent stake.

BATELCO is born - The national and international services were brought together to form Batelco which by then hosted an impressive 45,627 telephone and 1,647 telex customers.

1982 - Batelco connected the 50,000 th fixed telephone line in Bahrain

1983 - Work commenced on laying the coaxial cable to link Bahrain to Qatar and

1984 - Batelco opened its ARABSAT earth station, and Bahrain and Jordan became the first Arab countries to use Arab satellites commercially

1985 - Bahrain ’s first Fibre Optic cable; first section installed

1986 - BLEEP (Bahrain Long Executive Electronic Pager) superseded by a fully automatic alphanumeric paging system

1987 - Contract signed to construct phase 2 of new 11 storey Diplomat Area building to provide public counters and offices

1988 - Construction begins on Batelco’s Hamala Headquarters

1989 - Cable & Wireless sells 20% of its shares to Bahrain Government

1990 - A Fibre Optic cable, first of its kind in the ME, laid along the 26km King Fahad Causeway, becomes operational.

1991 - The first 128 kilobits-per-second data circuit in the Arabian Gulf established to the UK.

1992 - Bahrain becomes one of the first countries in the world with complete digitalization of its national and international telephone switches, at a total cost of over BD17 million.

1993 - VoiceMail launched.

1994 - Contract signed to introduce GSM (Global System for Mobiles) at a cost of BD6 million.

1995 - The GSM network was launched. In the same year, Batelco launched its inet Internet service, linking Bahrain to the global information superhighway.

1996 - Batelco becomes first Telecoms Company in the Middle East to qualify for ISO certification, recommended by the British Standards Institute.

1997 - Batelco Out-Patient Unit of the Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa Cardiac Centre at the BDF Hospital, inaugurated

1998 - The Fibre Optic Gulf cable (FOG), linking Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE, was officially inaugurated.

1999 - Batelco’s 100,000th mobile phone customer connected and the 100th International Roaming operator link established.

2000 - Batelco Jordan established to provide Internet, managed data and associated value-added services within Jordan.

2001 - Batelco launched Speednet, a superior Internet-access service based on Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology. Batelco also opened a state-of-the-art Customer Service and Sales Centre in Gosi Complex.

2002 - KwikServe Autopay machines installed across Bahrain

2003 - New company identity unveiled, incorporating the colours and design of the Bahraini flag.

2004 - Batelco provided the complete telecoms infrastructure for the first-ever Bahrain Grand Prix

2005 - Batelco declared overall winner in the Best Business Transformation Category of the Landor Awards beating out such global brands as Frito-Lay, Smirnoff, Bailey’s and Japan Post

2006 - Batelco purchases 96% share of Umniah Mobile Communications

2007 - Batelco NOC (Network Operations Centre) opened to manage and control Batelco network round the clock and isolate and rectify any fault without delay