By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is aiming to cover 90 percent of New Providence with its new fibre network within the next nine months as it placed broadband Internet at the core of yesterday's corporate rebranding.

The legacy carrier, unveiling a new logo and corporate brand identity, is seeking to leverage its network infrastructure into becoming the major broadband Internet provider by dislodging Cable Bahamas and seeing off the new competitive threat from Elon Musk's Starlink satellite product.

Sameer Bhatti, BTC's chief executive, said: “It's about us. It's about us bringing fibre here. It's about us having the most fibre in The Bahamas. It's about us having fibre available now for support of current use cases and future use cases, some we cannot even anticipate.

"This is an iconic moment for our company and for our country. We are still BTC colouring in the logo, which is a tribute to the blues that we've had in the past year but also, of course, our sea, which we honour”

Mr Bhatti revealed that BTC's New Providence fibre-to-the-home network coverage is currently 80 percent. He projected that, in nine months, it will be up to 90 percent and maintained that the carrier's future lies with providing the product throughout the country.

“The future BTC is truly the future of broadband. We're past the point where five megabits per second is enough," Mr Bhatti added. "The average household in the United States has 22 connected devices. If you add it up, we're in the gigabit era and we're heading to the multi gigabit per second era. And we need a network to support us to get there. Fibre is the right choice for that network for The Bahamas.

“We're 80 percent covered with fibre right now, and the next nine months we're going to be 90 percent covered. We're leveraging fibre as our primary approach to get to better broadband. You may also be aware we launched one gigabit per second speed symmetrical, the first to do that. Another proof point that we have the fibre out there, it's available and it is the best technology choice for us.”

The BTC chief argued that although satellite Internet providers such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, which recently got licensed to operate in The Bahamas, are competitive in remote areas, the coverage that fibre offers to the main islands and cays is the company’s priority.

“We see what Starlink is, and other satellite offerings. And those satellite offerings are competitive, let's say if you're on a cruise ship, if you're on the water, if you're in a remote island, let's say with 10 people, they will be competitive," Mr Bhatti added.

“What if you want to get to multi gigabit per second speed, which is where we're going. Twenty-five percent compounded average growth rate in usage of the Internet per year for the last four years, and that's going to continue unabated. In order to compete in that area we need fibre, and we are rolling it and we have the most. So, yes, there will be competitors from a satellite perspective that will really focus on maybe smaller locations. But here on the main islands and our main cays, fibre's the way”

Mr Bhatti said BTC is meeting internal performance targets, and has been successful with selling and installing fibre so far. "We've had five great months of selling, installing, maintaining our fibre," he added. "We're hitting all the metrics we set ourselves internally when it comes to getting and keeping customers.

"And I'd say it's because it's a superior product. Customers are taking more services on fibre than they were taking on purely DSL, copper. And so we have two metrics there: Getting/keeping customers and customers utilising that network and subscribing to more services. On those dimensions we're hitting the mark,

"As far as culture of this organisation is concerned, which is my primary focus, it's events like today where we bring everybody together. We bring Board together…everybody from the frontline to technical support, engineering. My senior leadership team hears the same message and is a part of that same moment. And to me, we call that part of our one BTC culture. One BTC culture is fine and well. We're going to continue to invest in it."