The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Aliv’s top executive said yesterday that the new mobile operator is targeting a 25-35 per cent market share by year-end, when it expectd to complete its network roll-out well ahead of its schedule obligations.

Damian Blackburn told Tribune Business yesterday that the company currently has more than 60,000 subscribers, figures it expects to be boosted by number portability.

“We’re targeting in the range of 25-35 per cent by the end of the year. How we get on depends on market conditions,” said Mr Blackburn.

“We’re over 60,000 subscribers right now. Obviously mobile number portability is going to open the market to a new segment. We estimate that about one-third of the market wouldn’t have joined us unless they could move their number, so now that’s open. Once things settle down in the next few days we expect to welcome a significant portion of those customers.”

Mr Blackburn added: “On the first couple of days [of number portability] we certainly had a lot of demand. There were a few glitches on Thursday and Friday, which we all worked together on.

“It’s been a little bit slower than it would have been because we have been focused on ironing the processes out with BTC and URCA. We’re going now full blast, so I expect we will get a real reading in about a week as to what the real demand is. There is certainly a demand from hundreds of people so far.”

Mr Blackburn said Aliv is progressing steadily with its roll-out plans.

“Our aim is to be on every Family Island by the end of 2017, which is well in advance of our final roll-out obligation, which I believe is mid-2018,” he added.

“We have launched in four islands. We have got New Providence and a significant majority of Grand Bahama up in October. Despite the hurricane we got Eleuthera and Abaco on stream before Christmas. There are a few more sites we rolled out after Christmas in one or two places.

“We now have full coverage in New Providence and Eleuthera. We still have one or two cays in Abaco. We’re pleased with what we have done so far. We are gearing up for the next phase. We have a very solid plan. In 2017, our target is to roll-out to every single Family Island.”

Last month, BTC announced that it had reached a co-location agreement with Aliv, which allows the latter to position its network equipment

on its cell towers.

“We’re not renting their network,” Mr Blackburn emphasised. “We are effectively renting a space at their site, and the use of their towers to put our equipment on, so that when we use BTC towers we will have an Aliv-controlled and managed network.

“That means we will be able to guarantee the same service quality we have done in the first four islands. We need to deploy approximately 100 sites across those remaining Family Islands.

“I expect that we will use 30-40 per cent that we build ourselves, and 50-60 per cent that we co-locate from BTC, subject to the engineers on both sides checking out BTC’s towers carefully and making sure that they are suitable for putting our equipment on, as well as their own, and make sure the networks don’t interfere with one another.”

Mr Blackburn said 350 direct and indirect jobs have been created via Aliv’s entry into the mobile market. “We have created, directly from Aliv, 250 Bahamian jobs,” he added.

“We have about 150 on permanent staff, and there are about 100 seasonal-type roles. We also created nearly 100 Bahamian jobs through our third party partners in the sales stores.”