The Tribune

THE Bahamas Telecommunications Company yesterday apologised to its customers who experienced dropped or failed calls in New Providence and Andros.

According to the company, the issue was related to its 2G network, which is used primarily for voice traffic.

"As soon as our teams became aware of the problem they launched a full-scale investigation and determined that the problem was occurring in small pockets. Our teams are fully engaged in resolving this particular issue," said senior manager of public relations Jerome Sawyer.

Just this weekend, BTC completed the first phase of a three part upgrade to replace its five-year old system with a new Ericson platform, part of a $42 million capital investment in wireless services.

"Over the past few days, we ran a series of public announcements informing the public of these upgrades, so that they would be prepared for any minor issues experienced on the network.

"Once all the upgrades are complete, customers will experience improved overall quality, fewer dropped calls, better texting, easier and smoother online and on-phone account information and top-ups of minutes with faster speeds," Mr Sawyer said.

Last month, BTC said it will do all it can to minimise the disruption to its cellular service as it undertakes the upgrades.

The company said the work will be completed by late summer and will make wireless device service in the Bahamas among the best and fastest in the world.

"We are very excited about what the service of the near future will be," said Marlon Johnson, vice-president, brand and communications.

"Meantime, we know that there will be some disruption as we move toward the new platform and we want to assure the public that we are trying to keep that interruption to a minimum and we will keep people informed every step of the way."

According to Mr Johnson, service disruption could reach its peak over one or two weekends leading up to the migration to the new platform this month.

"We are replacing platforms that are five to eight years old," he said. "In this industry, there are significant upgrades every few years and if you do not keep up, you get left behind in the dust. But the platform we are in the process of installing will prepare BTC for competition and prepare customers, including businesses, in the Bahamas to take advantage of all the new devices that are coming to market."