BTC drops 40,000 calls a day but to spend $65m

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd has reduced its daily average of dropped calls to 40,000 from more than 70,000 and now expects fewer challenges, Chief Executive Officer Leon Williams said yesterday.

He apologised to customers and employees on behalf of parent company Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC), for a lack of investment and customer focus in The Bahamas.

As part of a $65m investment over the next few months, BTC officials intend to upgrade the mobile, broadband, fixed line and enterprise networks. Mr Williams added that there also will be a special focus on the overall customer experience. 

The multi-million dollar push to improve BTC’s services, which has been constantly criticised, is a part of CWC’s $1.9bn plan to upgrade services in the Caribbean region.

“In the vein of the mobile network,” Mr Williams said, “some $26m is being spent to upgrade the mobile network. BTC installed some cellular towers on wheels at the Baha Mar Boulevard and one on RM Bailey Park. Those were the temporary installations. Since then BTC has installed four brand new cell sites. 

“We are on a mission to refocus and put them (cell sites) in areas where we still have dropped calls – for example on the airport corridor. So that should take away the problems that we experienced with dropped calls.

“Hopefully between now and Christmas with those cell sites we will be able to drop that to a more acceptable level. So what we are doing is all about the customer. A number of things are happening … 20 new cell sites will be installed throughout the Bahamas, an upgrade for LTE (long-term evolution) with 11 sites in New Providence 11 additional sites in Abaco, 11 additional sites in Grand Bahama and 11 in Eleuthera.”

Mr Williams said an estimated 50 per cent of BTC’s customers, according to a recent survey, have already indicated seeing improvements in data speeds.

With the bidding process for a new mobile cellular company opening today, Mr Williams told reporters that officials at BTC were not focused on a new competitor, but rather “winning the hearts and minds” of existing customers.

He said it was “futile” to focus on a competitor at this point when it is unclear which company will win a bid to operate in the Bahamas.

“While we are preparing for competition, our goal is not competition, our goal is winning the hearts and minds (of Bahamians) by giving them better services far beyond their expectations. If we can do that it would take care of the competition.

“We don’t have the energies, the time of day or the resources to sit down and just plot, plot, plot.  “When the liberalisation task force sends out its request for proposals (RFP), we get the sponsors in and the selection is made then we can focus energies on that single competitor. Today it would be foolish to waste money focusing on a competitor.”

BTC is encouraging customers to upgrade to its 4G network to broaden their communication options. There are an estimated 40,000 mobile customers with smart phones that are not data ready.

BTC is the largest provider of electronic communication services in the country and employs 779 people.

Comments

B_I_D___ says...

...waiting for John... ;-)

Posted 13 November 2014, 1:19 p.m. Suggest removal

John says...

I must say there have been marked improvement in cell service. Dropped calls especially. So I guess the firing of Geoff Houston and some of his management team was justified. Then there was also the issue of millions of dollars in phone cards missing that forced others to resign.

Posted 13 November 2014, 5:02 p.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

Really? Geoff Houston was the one broken spoke in the wheel.... one man really does stop the show. I guess if your call never connects you can't classify that as dropped...

Posted 13 November 2014, 6:55 p.m. Suggest removal

bigbadbob says...

so 70,000 droped calls a day is like buying a new car and 500 parts fall off as you drive away ,
i never never get even one dropped call in the usa but get every one i make here is dropped the service is horrid.

Posted 13 November 2014, 5:47 p.m. Suggest removal

John says...

No dropped calls in the USA...hmmmn

Posted 13 November 2014, 6:51 p.m. Suggest removal

John says...

According to Actix in the US, " Demand for data services is leading to increased failings on mobile networks, according to recent research conducted by Actix. The number of dropped data sessions and voice calls has increased by 121 percent as data demand grows.

On average around 1 percent of voice and data calls fail on mobile networks however some locations deliver call failure rates of over 17 percent during periods of high network load"

Posted 14 November 2014, 8:44 a.m. Suggest removal

John says...

This report was January 2014

Posted 14 November 2014, 9:09 a.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

Does that mean firing Mr Houston was just a political stunt?

Posted 14 November 2014, 9:10 a.m. Suggest removal

duppyVAT says...

Of course it was a political stunt ................... Blind Blake could see that. The PLP wanted to get their grubby fingers back on the Batelco gravy train.......... just listen to the talk/watch the realignments of the new Executive

Posted 14 November 2014, 9:44 a.m. Suggest removal

ThisIsOurs says...

I was trying to get an admission out of Blind John:)

Posted 14 November 2014, 10:36 a.m. Suggest removal

Emac says...

Blind John never sees the truth. He only supports conspiracy theories goblins and supernatural happenings. But I have noticed a trend: Whenever he sees that his theory is knocked out of the water by too many commenters, he disappears for a few days. ):

Posted 14 November 2014, 11:05 a.m. Suggest removal

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