The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) yesterday said it is projecting 25 per cent growth in mobile data traffic this year, and will have invested “north of $18 million” in its cellular network in the 12 months to end-March 2014.

Marlon Johnson, BTC’s senior vice-president of brand and communications, told Tribune Business that the incumbent cellular monopoly is investing $3 million alone in the six new cell towers set to come online in New Providence over the next six weeks.

Explaining that the new sites were designed to relieve congestion on the existing 4G network, Mr Johnson said further capacity would also be freed up by the full February 13 launch of BTC’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.

High volume data users, he added, will be encouraged to switch to 4G LTE which offers data download speeds at least four times’, and up to 10 times’, faster than the existing network.

And Mr Johnson told Tribune Business that BTC’s continued network infrastructure investments were being made with one eye on the upcoming April 2014 end to its cellular monopoly, with the carrier potentially facing competition for the first time in its most lucrative market come year-end 2014.

Agreeing that “ever increasing demand” had pushed BTC to increase its number of New Providence cellular sites to 56, Mr Johnson said: “As we roll out the network, more customers are talking and using data.

“Data is the big driver of the network expansion, and the data traffic will only increase over time.”

Mobile data has been the major growth area for BTC since Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) acquired the controlling equity interest, and management control, in the company via the April 2011 privatisation.

This market segment has exploded from very low beginnings, when market penetration was 0 per cent, and Mr Johnson said BTC expects this rapid growth to continue - albeit at a lower rate.

“We’ve probably seen data traffic growing by 50-60 per cent a year, and we expect that to continue, with at least 25 per cent in growth this year and per year,” he told Tribune Business.

“What we’ve seen happening is customers transitioning to smart phone devices and using the Internet to get online.”

Conceding that specific areas of BTC’s network, such as southwestern New Providence, downtown Nassau and Palmdale, were “hot spots” where data speeds sometimes slowed, Mr Johnson said the six new towers were intended to respond to customer complaints and relieve “congestion”.

“This year we’ve spent north of $18 million on the network alone, including LTE,” he told this newspaper, with BTC’s financial year running to end-March.

Three of the six new towers have already been installed on the Sir Milo Butler Highway, at Pinewood Gardens North and Carmichael Road to deliver improved cell phone service in southwest New Providence.

Mr Johnson said that mid-February’s LTE launch would help to “free up capacity on the existing network”, as BTC will encourage so-called “high data users” to switch to the new technology.

Bahamians can already purchase LTE enabled devices at BTC stores, and Mr Johnson told Tribune Business: “Everything we do is with a very clear recognition that we could have a mobile competitor by the end of the year.

“What we are doing on the customer service side, the new website, customer promotions, is all with a view to ensuring we’re prepared for competition.

“It’s something we’ve been doing for the past three years, and we’re moving into high gear. We want to ensure we have the widest and best coverage across the islands of the Bahamas.”

Mr Johnson added that Bahamians, especially those living in New Providence, often took end-to-end island cellular coverage “for granted”, implying that it would take time for BTC’s first cellular rival to build out their network infrastructure and properly compete.

“With a new competitor, that’ll be a challenge, building a network across the entire Bahamas,” he added.

Mr Johnson, though, conceded that BTC would be required to ‘share facilities’ with its cellular rival, thus reducing the latter’s build-out costs and time to market.

The timing and method of cellular liberalisation will be determined by the Government, with assistance from the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA). Among the likely bidders for a second licence are Digicel, Cable Bahamas, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone, which was part of a group that bid on BTC during the privatisation process.

“The LTE soft launch began on January 23. Terminal A in the Lynden Pindling International Airport, Pinewood and Sammy’s Chicken 2G/4G sites are expected to be on air by mid-February. Hamilton, Current Island, Pompey Bay and Half Moon Cay will be completed by February 21, and the remaining sites by March 14,” said Mr Johnson.

“We are launching in the four major islands, Grand Bahama, Abaco, Eleuthera, Exuma, also this month, with a focus on educating our customers on the benefits of LTE technology.”

And he added: “ “Over the last nine weeks there have been a number of network improvements in support of current activity and in preparation for LTE.

“We’ve added significant additional capacity to address the consistently increasing demand for data and voice services generally. Our key performance indicators tell us that on New Providence our worst affected areas have shown significant improvement since mid-December, in spite of the heavy Christmas traffic.

“BTC customers are feeling the difference as dropped calls have reduced significantly, primarily in those areas impacted and reported by customers across the Bahamas, not just here on New Providence.”

4G LTE is a standard for wireless-communication developed to increase the capacity and speed of wireless data networks. It typically delivers around 20 megabits per second (mbps) download speed.