The Tribune

• Aims to complete fibre roll-out by end-2023

• ‘Tremendous pressure’ to find key skillsets

• Eyeing 5G network trials working with Gov’t

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) top executive says it plans “to become a real attacker” in the battle for market share with ambitions to build-out its new network by end-2023.

Andre Foster, the carrier’s chief executive, told Tribune Business in a recent interview that all subscribers across The Bahamas will enjoy faster, better quality broadband Internet and TV services when it completes the transition from its legacy copper infrastructure to fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) within the next 23 months.

“It’s progressing well,” he said of the switch. “I wish I could say I was exactly where I want to be, meaning we have 100 percent of our network converted to fibre-to-the-home. We’ve made a commitment to have fibre-to-the-home available throughout the archipelago by 2023.”

While conceding that more remote locations in the Family Islands will likely be serviced by wireless, as opposed to fibre, technology, Mr Foster said The Bahamas would be “fully FTTH in the main islands” by year-end next year as BTC and its parent entities continue to invest millions of dollars in the network’s transformation.

“Our goal is to be off the copper network by 2023. That’s a big focus for us, and why we’re building it as quickly as we can,” he told this newspaper. The BTC chief said this ambitious target, coupled with the extent of the work involved, had forced it to recruit expatriate expertise to supplement the skilled Bahamian workforce already engaged on this task.

And Mr Foster said competition for scarce technology-related skillsets is only set to intensify after its BISX-listed rival, Cable Bahamas, unveiled plans to deploy its own fibre-to-the-home network across New Providence via an $80m investment.

“That’s why you’ve seen the murmurs in the market about bringing in support from outside The Bahamas to complement the workers in The Bahamas,” he added. “What we’re seeing is that there’s not enough manpower, and now there is a competitor that has woken up to say ‘we can’t let BTC get too far ahead of us in building fibre-to-the home’.

“That puts tremendous pressure on the workers and available skill sets in the market. We’ve got every firm able to support the build-out of fibre-to-the-home in The Bahamas working for us, and are supplementing it with outside expertise. We are really pleased with the build-out and the footprint there.

“I wish it could be faster. Our commitment is to build fibre-to-the-home through 2022 and 2023, and we have got to decommission the copper in that same timeframe.” The result, Mr Foster said, would be to improve BTC’s value proposition to Bahamians through the availability of 600 megabits of broadband Internet speed an an “all-digital” IPTV line-up.

He revealed that BTC also plans to take the offensive in the battle for market share with Cable Bahamas and Aliv, asserting that 2021 had seen it build a platform to make gains in this area during the current calendar year.

“We are very focused on growing our fixed footprint, and we did a fairly good job in achieving some objectives around that in 2021, so we feel very confident that we are rolling back to BTC a strong base of fixed customers,” Mr Foster told Tribune Business.

“We feel post-paid mobile, we have done very well with that. On the pre-paid side I would say we are feeling good about our future there. We do have some great things coming up that will really bring back some subscribers in that area. We feel good about where we ended 2021. We feel there’s an opportunity to become a real attacker, retain our customer base, and we’ll see more of that happen for us in the future.”

Mr Foster declined to provide details or figures ahead of the 2021 fourth quarter and full-year financial results announcement from its ultimate parent, Liberty Latin America (LiLAC). The latter’s 2021 third quarter results showed BTC added 2,900 fixed-line subscribers, broken down into 2,100 broadband Internet additions and 800 new TV customers, during that period.

However, it continues to experience attrition in its mobile customer base due to fierce competition with Aliv, with subscribers in this area falling by 2,600 during the period. BTC lost 200 post-paid customers, and another 2,400 pre-paid mobile subscribers, during the quarter.

This left it with 175,100 total mobile subscribers at end-September 2021, broken down into 32,900 post-paid clients and 142,200 who are pre-paid. On the fixed-line side, BTC has some 75,300 subscribers divided into 34,600 telephone customers; 31,200 Internet clients; and 9,500 TV takers. The total number of homes passed by BTC’s fibre-to-the-home network now stands at 120,900.

Elsewhere, Mr Foster said BTC had engaged in “very productive discussions” recently with both the Government and sector regulator, the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA), on the deployment of 5G (fifth generation) mobile technology in The Bahamas.

“We know this is a high priority for the Government, and they see 5G as something that will help to bring not just investment from outside the country because of fast, reliable telecommunications services but also for us to bring people across the digital divide and into information technology,” the BTC chief said.

“There’s some work URCA has to do with spectrum licensing and availability across the archipelago. But we and our network are ready to expand for 5G. We’ve made some inferences that we can do some small trials with government in areas that make sense, such as Nassau harbour, because of the density of people.”

Mr Foster said the existing 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) mobile network still had significant unused capacity to meet market demand, and added that the fibre-to-the-home roll-out will provide the “foundation” and backbone to support an eventual 5G roll-out.

Given the tower and population density required to support 5G, he added that global experience had shown it may not be suitable for use in more sparsely populated rural areas.