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.