The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas’ second mobile operator yesterday received a “credibility” boost from regulators confirming it had met its first network roll-out targets, and disclosed it was ahead of schedule in bring service to Abaco, Grand Bahama and Eleuthera.

Damian Blackburn, Aliv’s chief executive, told Tribune Business that the mobile provider had beaten the January 1, 2017 deadline, to bring its services to Abaco and Eleuthera. And it had also brought services to 99 per cent of Grand Bahama before the end-February target.

Lauding the “world record pace” of Aliv’s roll-out, Mr Blackburn said the company now had 128 mobile phone towers that were fully operational across New Providence, Grand Bahama, Abaco and Eleuthera.

Emphasising that Alive was not pausing, he revealed that the provider had applied for permits to build a further 75 mobile phone towers within the last two weeks, as it moves to roll-out services to other Family Islands.

Mr Blackburn said Exuma and its surrounding cays, Andros and Bimini were the next islands being targeted by Aliv, which had managed to shrug off the “massive disruption” caused by Hurricane Matthew.

The Aliv chief executive said the Category Three/Four storm had cost the mobile provider six-eight weeks of time when it came to its network deployment, although he said the resulting delays were “not material”.

Matthew, which struck five days after Aliv ‘came alive’, cost the company around $500,000 as a result of having to inspect and conduct “rectifications” to its systems.

Despite these extra obstacles, Mr Blackburn acknowledged that the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) had reinforced Aliv’s credibility by confirming that the company had met its first coverage and service quality targets.

URCA said it had carried out more than 23,000 voice and data tests on Aliv’s networks on New Providence and Grand Bahama to verify the reports submitted to it by the company on October 3 and November 18 last year.

Revealing that the mobile provider’s operating parent, NewCo2015, has been renamed BeAliv Ltd, the regulator said: “URCA is now able to confirm that based on its investigations, as at the time of submission of both reports, BeAliv was fully compliant with the roll-out and quality of service requirements for the first milestone.”

As part of its license terms, Aliv has to meet several target dates for the roll-out of its network infrastructure and services. Any failure to hit these ‘milestones’ could result in the company being fined, via claims made on the $18 million performance bond it previously lodged.

For its first target, URCA had to cover 99 per cent of New Providence, and 80 per cent of Grand Bahama, with minimum and maximum signal strengths by October 1, 2016.

It also had to provide service quality where mobile broadband data and mobile voice services hit 99 per cent availability, targets that URCA confirmed it exceeded at 99.91 per cent and 99.93 per cent, respectively.

Aliv also had to achieve a 90 per cent ‘confidence’ indicator over the provision of “a mobile broadband data service with a sustained downlink speed of at least 5Mbps (megabytes per second)” when its network was lightly loaded.

URCA said its tests showed Aliv’s network achieved an average downlink speed of “approximately 9.6 Mbps”, almost double what was required.

Mr Blackburn told Tribune Business that URCA had confirmed Aliv’s own public statements on the matter, the operator having said previously that it had met its first network roll-out targets.

“It’s a major achievement, and I think we’ve earned credibility for doing it so fast,” he said. “I’m glad they’ve [URCA] done the diligence work to confirm it.

“The hurricane obviously got in the way of confirming it, but we’re pleased URCA agrees with it. It further reiterates that to do it in three months, with 73 sites, was a world record.”

Mr Blackburn attributed Aliv’s relatively fast roll-out to the preparatory work done by its controlling 47.25 per cent shareholder, Cable Bahamas, and the ability to leverage the BISX-listed communications provider’s existing fibre optic infrastructure to connect its mobile towers.

Describing Aliv’s roll-out and launch as “a massive effort”, Mr Blackburn said the mobile provider had played its part through the “rapid mobilisation” of engineering teams and suppliers.

He added that Aliv had also been ahead of its January 1, 2017, obligation to provide network coverage for 75 per cent of Abaco and Eleuthera, and already met the March 1 goal of “99 per cent of Grand Bahama”.

“We launched in Abaco and Eleuthera prior to Christmas,” Mr Blackburn told Tribune Business, “and have 128 sites live across all four islands.

“We have a comprehensive plan for all the other populated islands, and will roll that out now. We’ve filed site build plans for 75 [tower] sites with URCA a couple of weeks ago.”

These sites, together with infrastructure sharing with its Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) rival where possible, will form the core of Aliv’s Family Island network.

Mr Blackburn said Aliv was now focusing on Exuma and the surrounding cays, Andros and Bimini in its next phase, followed by other Family Islands.

He pledged that the company would move “with the same speed” as it has in its existing four islands, and was determined not to use Hurricane Matthew as an excuse to delay.

“Obviously, the hurricane was a massive disruption to everyone, but we’re not really focusing on that as an excuse,” Mr Blackburn said.

“For Abaco and Eleuthera, we got on and delivered well in advance of the December 31 deadline. We delivered the whole of Grand Bahama in advance of the February 28 deadline.

“We’re getting on and doing things when they make commercial sense, doing things as quickly as possible when they are in our direct control. Our mission is to get alive as quickly as possible everywhere.”

Mr Blackburn said, though, that several key factors remained outside Aliv’s control, such as BTC’s willingness to offer and provide co-location, and the speed with which it received the necessary approvals from the Government and URCA.

When this was combined with the hurricane-related disruption, the Aliv chief executive said it was “important” that URCA had extended the target dates for its next two network roll-out milestones by six weeks.

“Due to the disruption of the Bahamas’ electronic communications networks, significant roll-out delays were experienced by BeAliv as a result of matters outside BeAliv’s control,” URCA acknowledged yesterday in reference to Hurricane Matthew.

“URCA has assessed the impact of the damage on the roll-out progress, and considers it appropriate and necessary to extend the compliance deadline for each of the second and third milestones (Phase 1b and Phase 2) by six weeks to 14 February 2017, and 14 April, respectively.”

The Phase 1b target had required Aliv to hit 75 per cent coverage on Abaco, Eleuthera, Exuma, Andros and Bimini.

The next phase then mandated it to achieve 99 per cent coverage on Grand Bahama, Eleuthera, Bimini, Andros and Exuma, and 85 per cent on Abaco.

“URCA’s review of BeAliv’s performance in respect of Phases 1b and 2 will commence on 15 February and 17 April, respectively, and will take up to three weeks in each instance,” URCA said.

Mr Blackburn, meanwhile, said Aliv had “exceeded” its own and URCA’s service quality measures via the “quality, data rich network” it has rolled out.

Turning to Matthew, he added: “It cost us, we think, a couple of months, six to eight weeks, just because for four to five weeks we had to go back on the existing network to do inspections and rectification.

“We had to visit every site, and it did cost us time as we had to divert resources to that, as we should. It didn’t slow us up unduly on Abaco and Eleuthera. We were delayed, but not materially.”