The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is investing a further $2 million in its 4G network to relieve “bottlenecks” at 15 cell tower sites caused by a 400 per cent increase in mobile data usage, its chief executive yesterday also targeting a ‘doubling’ of its Internet market share.

Disclosing that the transition to the 4G network had unleashed “a huge pent up demand for data”, Geoff Houston said customer complaints about cellular service quality and dropped/missed calls stemmed from the fact that traffic volumes exploded as BTC was in the midst of switching out its outdated existing network.

Data volumes on BTC’s network, he said, had seen a “factor increase” of 40 times’ since it began switching out its 2G network, rising from 3,500 Megabytes (MB) per day to 145,000 MB daily.

Noting that cellular voice traffic had also increased by 30 per cent, Mr Houston said BTC “didn’t miss a heartbeat” in deciding additional investment was necessary to solve the problems.

He added that they had been exacerbated by a 30 per cent increase in roaming traffic over the past 12 months, with tourists and visitors to the Bahamas increasingly using their cell phones for mobile data.

Elsewhere, Mr Houston said BTC was targeting the business/commercial market for short-term growth opportunities, plus looking to expand its broadband Internet market share and increase the Family Islands’ contribution as a percentage of its total revenue.

He told Tribune Business that BTC, which currently held a 20-25 per cent Internet market share, should have “50 per cent plus” for a company of its size.

And the BTC chief executive said he wants to grow the Family Islands’ share of total revenue from around the existing 15-20 per cent to one-third.

Describing November as “a big month” for BTC with regard to “the final deployment” of its 4G network, Mr Houston said: “That’s been a large part of our journey, and most likely by the time we get there we will have changed out every single aspect of BTC’s mobile network - the voice platform, the billing, the texting - and put in an entirely new supporting platform.

“In amongst all that, is a huge amount of latent demand for data. We’ve experienced capacity increases in some locations by 400 per cent.”

These 15 cell site locations that “suffered most from demand” included Paradise Island, which serves part of Bay Street, DW Davis, Mall at Marathon and Poinciana Drive

“That [demand] continues to increase as customers get smart phones,” Mr Houston added, estimating that sales of this product had increased from 3 per cent of total handsets at the time of the April 2011 privatisation to more than 50 per cent now.

“That’s been part of our challenge,” he told Tribune Business. “As we changed the network out, people used their phones more for voice and data.

This month we will be investing $2 million to cope with capacity at those 15 locations. There has also been a 30 per cent increase in voice traffic.”

Asked what he would say to Bahamian consumers and businesses about the cellular network problems experienced this year, Mr Houston replied: “We’re on it.

“We understand these issues, where the areas are. We have a plan in place, and are executing it this month. We didn’t miss a heartbeat; we realised we needed $2 million to fix all these bottlenecks.”

Mr Houston said BTC and CWC/LIME were not alone in experiencing such difficulties, noting that the likes of AT&T and Verizon were having problems keeping up with consumer demand that was rapidly changing business models and driving the communications market away from voice to mobile date.

The BTC chief executive added that the company “had a big job to do” in educating its cellular customers, noting that many were buying handsets in the US that were not compatible with, and did not configure and operate very well on, his company’s network.

Some 3,000 different handset models and brands, some of which he had never heard of, were using BTC’s network. And Mr Houston said the lack of compatibility of some models meant consumers could not use the company’s data packages.

BTC has more than 300,000 cellular subscribers, of whom 30,000-plus or 10 per cent use mobile data.

“We must always remember we have got a huge roaming market,” Mr Houston told Tribune Business. “There are more such users on this network at any one time than the biggest network in Brazil.

“The vast majority of those customers, as a percentage, are higher than Bahamian customers in terms of using smart phones. That’s unforeseen demand we’re having to cope with as well. Our data usage from roaming has probably increased 30 per cent in the last 12 months.”

Mr Houston said it was noticeable that “bottlenecks” had occurred at cellular sites in the Cable Beach and Paradise Island areas.

Looking ahead to short-term growth opportunities, Mr Houston identified broadband Internet and the Family Islands as two that BTC was pursuing.

“We are going to be very aggressive pursuing broadband product,” he told Tribune Business. “Prior to CWC arriving, the business had lost a significant amount of market share, and we’ve got to win that back.

“A company like ourselves should be in the 50 per cent-plus share range, and we’re currently sitting in the 20-25 per cent range, so we’ve got huge work to do.

“We also feel there’s significant latent demand in the Family Islands. I’d like to feel in future one-third of our revenues will come out of the Family Islands, and today it’s probably a little less than that - 15-20 per cent of revenues.”

Another “big one” was the Bahamian business/commercial market. “We have got a huge job to do to establish credibility with the customer base, and believe there are significant growth opportunities,” Mr Houston added.

BTC would target this in the next year, having established “a whole new sales organisation” within the company to target that market segment, and changed the network serving it.

“If you look at the products and services out there servicing that market, it’s a fairly narrow product set, so we believe the potential’s enormous, as companies look for connectivity, and connectivity to international head offices. We don’t feel like there’s enough of that here in the Bahamas.”