By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) will give the 300 customers impacted by an eastern New Providence network outage a credit equal to one month’s service fee.

The announcement was made yesterday by communications industry supervisor, the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA), which said it had completed “initial inquiries” into a service interruption that BTC alleges was caused by another utility provider accidentally cutting its fibre optic cable in the area.

URCA said of the disruption, which impacted BTC customers in the Eastern Road and Johnson Road, that the carrier was first alerted to the service disruption on Sunday, February 4. “BTC advised URCA that it discovered damage believed to be done by a third party to one of the main trunk fibres supplying the impacted zones,” the regulator added.

“BTC advised URCA that the service disruption affected around 300 consumers. BTC asserts that restoration efforts were hindered by inclement weather. BTC advised URCA that services were restored at approximately 8pm on February 7. BTC has informed URCA that it has decided to issue a credit equivalent to one month’s service fee to all consumers impacted by the disruption.”

URCA’s statement, though, made no mention of its inquiry’s findings or confirm whether another utility provider had compromised BTC’s cable network as the latter has alleged. BTC, in its original statement, said landline, mobile and Internet services had been interrupted after another utility - which it did not name - allegedly cut its underground fibre cable while conducting trenching work of its own.

The likeliest purported culprits would be the Water & Sewerage Corporation and Cable Bahamas/Aliv. The former has been digging up the road and conducting work in the nearby Fox Hill community, while the BISX-listed communications provider has been rolling-out its own $80m fibre-to-the-home network across New Providence.

However, the Water & Sewerage Corporation is not regulated by URCA. BTC’s call for the regulator to initiate a probe therefore indicates the provider it is alluding to may be Cable Bahamas/Aliv.

Drexel Woods, BTC’s director of technical operations, last week said bad weather and “safety concerns” had delayed repairs on Monday, February 5, but added that customers in the affected areas should have begun to see services restored from the following day.

“We noticed that our services were abruptly interrupted on Sunday and, following investigations, it was determined that our underground fibre was cut by another utility provider that was trenching in the Eastern Road area,” he said.

“Unfortunately, due to the inclement weather and safety concerns for our technicians, we could not complete repairs on Monday. Our teams are still working on repairing the fibre, and we anticipate that customers will begin to be restored today.”