By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is set to bring three more cell towers into service by month’s end, in a bid to relieve New Providence “hot spot” bottlenecks created by a 27,000 per cent increase in data traffic.

Disclosing that voice traffic had also increased by 60 per cent since its 4G network launched in December 2011, Marlon Johnson, BTC’s vice-president of marketing, told Tribune Business that the growth showed just how much “latent demand” there was in the Bahamas for mobile communications services.

Noting that text messages carried via BTC’s system increased from one million to 1.5 million per day when promotions, such as Penny Text Fridays, Mr Johnson pledged that the carrier would unveil its much-hyped Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology by year-end 2013.

And an IP (Internet Protocol) based TV product, the first mass market rival to Cable Bahamas, is set for commercial launch before BTC”s current financial year ends in April 2014.

Confirming that two new cell tower sites, one close to the new National Stadium, the other in Pinewood, had been completed, Mr Johnson said the other three were expected to come into service “very shortly”.

These sites, the last of the planned five additions, are located near the Soldier Road/Village Road junction, where BTC has its exchange; at the Seabreeze corridor with the Charles W Saunders Highway; and a new one is being erected at the Shirley Street Shopping Plaza.

“These three will come on stream some time before the end of May,” Mr Johnson told Tribune Business. “This is keeping up, and keeping ahead, of demand growth.

“That has been phenomenal. There has been a 27,000 per cent increase in data traffic since we launched the 4G network in December 2011, a year and four months ago.

“Even voice traffic, because we have had more capacity in some areas, has grown by 60 per cent,” the BTC executive told Tribune Business.

“It’s emblematic of the fact that we’ve put in a new network, and that shows you how much latent demand there is.”

Mr Johnson confirmed that the five latest New Providence cell phone towers were designed “to deal with hit spots, and address capacity issues in those areas”

Both Pinewood and Seabreeze were major residential areas that attracted a large amount of traffic, while Soldier Road and Shirley Street - the latter close to the commercial hub that is Palmdale - were key for business-driven voice and data activity.

With capacity in these areas set for a substantial upgrade, Mr Johnson added that BTC would “continue that investment” into its current financial year, which began on May 1.

“We look forward to launching LTE before the end of the year,” he added of the technology that is intended to drive much faster download and connectivity speeds.

Mr Johnson told Tribune Business that BTC had “cut over 40,000 network lines from the legacy plant to the new platform” that is its Next Generation Network (NGN), a move designed to upgrade broadband Internet and fixed-line services.

Adding that BTC was “very comfortable” of meeting its summer 2013 timeline for switching all 140,000 customers over to its NGN network, Mr Johnson added: “We feel we will have the most modern, reliable cellular and landline network.

“By the end of our next financial year, in 2014, we feel very confident we will have a TV product in the market. We are still in the business case development and market testing stage, but believe we will have something in the market by then.

“Our emphasis has been on putting together a quality product. We do have numbers we want to aspire to, but it’s a new business segment and we want to do it properly. If we have a good product, word of mouth will sell it for us.”

The BTC executive added that the carrier was set to unveil its new look for business customers, particularly in the area of data and broadband Internet, by June-July this year.

“We are going to be looking at the whole commercial data offering in the marketplace, and will make sure we provide superior value to customers,” Mr Johnson said.