The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Telecommunications Company (BTC) executives said yesterday that service to hundreds of Grand Bahama-based mobile and fixed-line customers had been disrupted due to copper thieves targeting the company's sites across the island, a development also placing a "dark cloud" over the scrap metal industry.

Michael Laing, BTC's senior manager for Grand Bahama, told Tribune Business the company was working feverishly to restore service to its customers after thieves stole power and grounding cables from six service sites. The latest act occurred at 8pm on Monday night at BTC's Midshipman Drive site, which caused the failure of the fixed-line site providing service to some 299 fixed-line and DSL Internet customers. Grounding cable was removed from the cell site, but no disruption of services has occurred yet.

Mr Laing told Tribune Business: "I can't really put a number on the cost of all of this, but it has created a huge disruption to our service. We are trying to get the land-line service restored today, but we are going to have to do some major ground cabling to get the other sites up and replace all of the grounding materials they removed. I haven't gotten a figure for that cost as yet. You really can't say how many customer have been affected."

Mr Laing added that BTC has 40 outdoor sites in Grand Bahama, and said: "You have to replace this stuff, and we are looking at putting cameras to these sites. With 40 isolated sites that's going to cost a lot of money which we could invest in other things."

Mr Laing added that the thefts occurred between June 2 and the evening of June 11. Thieves stole power and grounding cables from six BTC service sites, including Lucayan Estates, Old Movie Studios, Fortune Cay, Midshipman, Maurice Moore and the Ocean Side Triangle, resulting in more than 400 customers being affected by either a complete disruption in land-line and DSL services.

The series of robberies began on June 2 at the Lucayan Estates cell site, resulting in disruption of mobile service for customers frequenting the area, with a subsequent theft at the cell and land line sites at the Old Movie Studio on June 6. This resulted in the disruption of service for mobile customers, in addition to the loss of land-line and DSL service to a few customers in the surrounding area.

Thieves targeted the Fortune Cay site on June 10, disrupting land-line and DSL service to some 115 customers. Service to this site was restored by 9.30am the following day, according to BTC. The latest act occurred at 8pm Monday night at the Midshipman site, which caused the failure of the land-line site providing service to some 299 fixed line and DSL customers.

Last summer, the Government placed a temporary ban on the scrap metal trade, while imposing a permanent ban on all copper exports in an effort to curb the wanton theft and mangling of valuable property said to be linked with the industry.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham subsequently tabled the Pawnbrokers and Secondhand Dealers Bill 2011 in the House of Assembly, which set out operational guidelines and regulations for pawn brokers, 'cash for gold' operators and scrap metal dealers.

Under the provisions of the new law, business owners or dealers engaged in the export of scrap metal will have the duty and responsibility to verify the identity of customers and to maintain records of all transactions.

Scrap metal operator Ronny Etienne, owner of Nassau-based Ronny's Auto, said the BTC incident placed a dark cloud over scrap metal exporters in Grand Bahama.

Mr Etienne said: "What that does is put a dark cloud over exporters in Freeport. All the other islands either come through Freeport or Nassau to export. It's really sad that you have guys out there doing these kind of things, giving dealers a bad name."

Mr Etienne noted that based on the new Act, dealers have to wait 30 days to export copper. "Customs comes and inspects it, and if no one makes any claim against it they give you the go ahead to export," he said.