Question 1: In 1981, the Kingdom of Bahrain created the Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) to be the sole provider of telecommunications services, with the government as the principal shareholder. The state-monopoly position of Batelco was deemed to be the best way to provide telecom services as a public service, while at the same time guaranteeing to the government significant revenues in terms of taxes or fees on services, as well as taking a large part of the private profits of the entity in the form of dividends. Batelco retained a monopoly for more than two decades after its inception, reaching 100,000 mobile subscribers by 1999, before pressure from international bodies prompted the government to pass the telecommunications law in 2002. The Batelco monopoly officially ended in 2003 with the entrance of Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) Vodafone, 60% owned by MTC and 40% by Bahraini investors and later rebranded as Zain. Discuss three characterstics of the monopoly structure and Explain what strategies Batelco used to address the competitive pressure. (10 Marks)