By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

A LOCAL businessman yesterday criticised the Bahamas Telecommunications Company for its “sub-standard” service and made an impassioned appeal to the government to hasten its steps to introduce a competitor to the market.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, president of Superwash Ltd, also predicted that BTC will lose significant market share of its mobile customers when a cellular competitor is introduced, which he said would be warranted given the company’s track record since privatisation in 2011.

Mr D’Aguilar also questioned the ongoing upgrades and said BTC constantly announces work to infrastructure, but Bahamians have not seen the results. Instead, Mr  D’Aguilar said, customers have only been plagued with dead spots, dropped calls and text messages that never reach their intended destination.

Last week, BTC released a public notice explaining that every day until July 15, customers might experience slower mobile internet speeds and dropped calls due to improvements with mobile internet services. The statement said that customers were more likely to experience service interruptions between the hours of 11pm to 6am.

“The level of BTC’s service is truly sub-standard, there is just no other way to describe it,” Mr D’Aguilar told The Tribune. “For years they have been saying they are making upgrades and customers can’t seem to get this upgraded service.

“I think the problem is that BTC has severely underestimated the level of traffic on their network, but it has left the average Bahamian frustrated because they can’t make a simple phone call. All we would like is to be able to place a call and have it end when we’d like it to. But it really boggles my mind that they can’t seem to get this right.

“I am praying, we all are. Jesus, we need competition to allow us the chance of better service. When that happens, just as BTC lost to Cable (Bahamas) internet, landline and long distance . . . so will they lose with mobile.”

Mr D’Aguilar was not the only one who expressed anger at BTC’s service as dozens of comments from frustrated customers poured into the company’s Facebook page yesterday.

A user named Mrs Laydee Capron said: “I actually experience these dropped calls every single day, several times a day, anytime of day. Actually getting a call out is rare. If someone were getting assaulted I could not depend on my cell phone to make a call out and that’s sad. I’ve already (messaged) your page to let you know of a personal serious experience I had. I hope this changes soon.”

“Really BTC, I have not been able to use my data plan, make or receive calls, send texts nor receive texts and this has been this way for the past three days all day, so please get it together,” said another user Cherylynn Taylor.

“Really hope this upgrade makes mobile internet services better,” Facebook user Kurt Morris wrote. “Some areas you get only that weak ‘E’ signal and it’s slow as a snail. The ‘H+’ signal is pretty good but it’s not consistent, (it) needs to be stronger. Get rid of that Edge system, it’s terrible.”

Calls made to Marlon Johnson, vice-president of marketing at BTC and Jerome Sawyer, senior manager of public relations, were not successful up to press time.