The Tribune

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) yesterday said it was committed to investing “more than $100 million” in upgrading its communications infrastructure, adding that its mobile data traffic had increased 28,751 per cent since its 4G network launched in December 2012.

Responding to the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority’s (URCA) preliminary findings on its June 18 network outage, BTC acknowledged customer “frustrations” over service problems caused by its network upgrades, and pledged to work with the regulator to solve any problems.

In a statement, Geoff Houston, BTC’s chief executive, said he expected the carrier’s service to improve in 2013 it completes the replacement of the “30-year-old obsolete system” its majority shareholder, Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), inherited following April 2011’s privatisation.

“We accomplished a great deal in 2012 in upgrading a network which was more than 30 years old in some places,” Mr Houston said.

“But the high demand by customers for the new services we introduced, like mobile data, was so great that our networks sometimes struggled to keep up. I’m determined we’ll do better for customers in 2013.

“BTC is committed to a programme of investment of more than $100 million in upgrading its infrastructure, which will reposition the Bahamas to take advantage of the explosion in data. As more communications become mobile and Internet-based, BTC aims to have the most advanced network in the region.”

BTC said the upgraded mobile network, which went from 2G (second generation) to 4G (fourth generation) technology, had seen its capacity increase from 3.5GByte per day to around 150GByte per day - an increase of 4,285 per cent. The 4G system is carrying about 1TByte of data a day from a zero start at installation.

Overall, BTC said it had seen an increase of 28,751 per cent in mobile data since the launch of 4G in December 2012.

“We upgraded to a totally new telecommunications platform for text and mobile, keeping the old system running for continuing service. The existing network was very antiquated and fragile in many areas, so we pushed hard on rolling out the new, faster network,” Mr Houston said.

“What we accomplished in 18 months would, under normal circumstances, take four to five years to complete. It was a bit like performing open-heart surgery while the patient was walking around.

“With the increase in demand for services the patient had a lot of pressure on it, and that led to disruption – we sincerely apologise to our customers for this. However, we do expect service across the board to improve over the coming first few months of 2013.”

Mr Houston added: “We want stability before we launch our next product, Long Term Evolution (LTE,) – the fastest mobile data service available in the world today. LTE will deliver 4G service up to 10 times faster, and give the Bahamas the fastest Internet in the region.”

Addressing the island-wide outage from last June, Mr Houston said BTC was working with URCA to improve processes and reporting systems.

“We will work with URCA on how we can solve this problem together,” he added. “We share the same objectives and that is a solid network for the Bahamas.

“URCA understands the day-to-day frustrations we face in the overhaul and upgrade of an inherited, obsolete system with a legacy of long-standing problems. Equally, we understand its position and we are working together to bring about our joint objectives.”

URCA found BTC breached a key condition of its licence during last June’s island-wide network outage, levelling implicit criticism at majority shareholder CWC.

It said the causes ultimately lay with BTC - a lack of “preventative maintenance” and a failure to provide for adequate redundancy and contingencies in its network design.

The communications industry regulator also issued a thinly-veiled criticism of CWC and its LIME regional affiliate, saying BTC knew it had “limited geographic redundancy” in its network since April 2011 - the date when it was privatised but failed to correct them.

And URCA added that prior to June 18, 2012, BTC had no business continuity plan - something vital to ensuring the continued, uninterrupted operations of a company. Given BTC’s vital role as a communications infrastructure provider, business continuity is essential.