The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) released a statement yesterday advising that some Family Island consumers have been experiencing service issues “due to power-related issues and malicious acts”.

The communication went on to explain that consumers affected by the outages will be compensated in their upcoming bills.

The statement said: “Over the last several weeks, residents in some Family Islands have experienced down time with their landline, internet, and mobile services, due to power-related issues and malicious acts.

“BTC will be compensating customers for the inconvenience of these outages, and customers will see the same noted in their upcoming bills.”

Islands affected by the recent outages include Grand Bahama, Abaco, South Andros, Mangrove Cay and Mayaguana,

Sameer Bhatti, BTC CEO, said the company is communicating with Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) on ways to mitigate the issues cased by power outages. He noted that a “brownout” in Mayaguana damaged BTC equipment and disturbed the service in neighbouring Inagua and a lightning strike in South Andros damaged the equipment on that island.

He said: “We apologise to our customers in the Family Islands that have been experiencing issues over the last few weeks. Many of these outages were due to power-related issues that impacted our ability to provide connectivity. We are in talks with Bahamas Power and Light, and we are working collectively to mitigate recurring instances.

“In Mayaguana, there was a ‘brownout’ which resulted in a drop in the necessary voltage required to operate our network equipment on the island. This subsequently caused damage to our air conditioning unit, which is necessary to keep our equipment functional. The equipment in Mayaguana is connected to Inagua, which also caused issues there.

“In South Andros, a lightning strike damaged equipment and resulted in down time in Mangrove Cay.”

Mr Bhatti went on to explain that Abaco and Grand Bahama experienced outages due to ‘thieves’ taking their copper wire and fibre optic cables noting that the police has arrested some of the culprits.

He said: “In Abaco, our fiber was cut by thieves causing services to be down. We encourage anyone with information to report it to the police. In Grand Bahama, we have had numerous issues with copper theft and fiber cutting, which were reported to the Police. We are pleased to report that the police have apprehended the culprits.”

Roscoe Thompson, chairman of the Marsh Harbour/Spring City Township, said that BTC service in Abaco has been “slow and very inconsistent” lately and that residents were aware of the thievery that led to their service disruptions.

He said: “The service has been bad the last couple of weeks, the internet is really slow right now and BTC is off in some areas as far as I know but the cable was still on. BTC and their WiFi was going up and down and its been real slow and very inconsistent recently. Someone told me their wires were purposefully cut and copper stolen from the top of the poles.”

James Carey, president of the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce, said that the copper theft was once popular on the island but ceased once the authorities started to regulate the export industry.

He said: “There used to be a lot of copper stolen on the island going back but I’ve not heard that much about it in recent times. The BTC report said a number of customers have lost service because of the copper theft, I believe the authorities are keeping an eye on export business shutting off that opportunity.”

Darin Bethel, president of the Andros Chamber of Commerce, said that Andros has been plagued with electrical, water, telephone and internet issues since a fire at the BPL North Andros plant caused extensive damage to machinery and equipment. He added that BTC’s decision to offer compensation to their consumers may be a result of direct competition in the telecommunications market and indicated that BPL is not incentivised to offer compensation to their consumer as they have a monopolistic hold on the local energy sector.

He said: “Andros is having a hard time right now basically because of the infrastructure and utilities. Business people are complaining about the telephone service and water just as much as the lights. So BPL’s problems have added challenges for other utlilties because the electricity is frequently going off and on and its damaging their generators. Also there was a lightening strike in South Andros and that generated more issues. Right now we need an intervention to deal with the level of service on Andros.

“BPL isn’t challenged with competition so they don’t have the motivation to offer compensation.”