The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

AN estimated 55,000 households in the country experienced severe television pixilation and blackouts yesterday, an issue Cable Bahamas attributed to technical equipment failure.

REV customers reportedly began having issues with their services on Tuesday evening and the problems persisted well into yesterday.

In a press statement the company said all of its REV customers in Grand Bahama, New Providence, Eleuthera and Abaco were affected.

REV Chief Operating Officer John Gomez said in the statement: “We experienced an equipment failure on our video core network that is impacting all of our video channels on the islands of Grand Bahama, New Providence, Eleuthera and Abaco.

“Our Family Island customers are currently experiencing issues limited to three channels, including ZNS, the Parliamentary Channel and OURTV. The issue began affecting channels last night (Tuesday) and we have been working throughout the night to resolve the issue. We anticipate having all video services fully restored today (Wednesday).”

The statement noted that customers experienced signal disruptions resulting in pixilation, streaming breaks and in some cases complete loss of channel access.

However, shortly thereafter restoration teams were deployed to troubleshoot all relevant equipment, it continued.

“Engineers have been working feverishly to restore service as quickly as possible. As of 10am the communications provider can confirm some services have been restored but are not able to confirm a specific completion time for the full restoration.”

The company assured customers of hourly progress updates using the media and social media and apologised for the disruption.

This did little to satisfy angry customers who criticised Cable Bahamas for the situation.

One customer wrote on Facebook: “I never thought I would see a day where a company would be less reliable than BPL. That day is here….”

Another questioned whether there would be compensation: “Will clients be getting a reduction in their bills? This ‘inconvenience,’ conveniently happens every day."