Officials at the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd. (BTC) said the organization suffered severe damage to its network in Grand Bahama as a result of a third party construction company.

This incident took place on Saturday, July 15, and BTC’s technical team was able to quickly assess the damage and gradually begin restoring services to customers. Shortly before midnight all services were restored.

The damage impaired trunking fiber cables which connect the EMR Transmission Office and the Freeport Transmission Office.

As a result, customers in Grand Bahama and across the country experienced intermittent degradation of landline, internet, television and mobile services.

Interim CEO Dexter Cartwright said, “We recognize how important our services are, not only to our customers, but to the nation as a whole. As a proactive measure, BTC installed aerial fiber to several key sites that were undergoing construction, in the event of instances like this. Because of this, our technical team was able to re-route traffic and restore services to customers in a short space of time.  As a company, we will continue to prioritize any investment required to increase the robustness of our network so it continues to be the first choice of The Bahamian people.”

The company announced the introduction of its new Fiber to Home service earlier this month.  This improved service would provide internet services 20 to 100 times faster than the current cable modem or DSL service which many customers now use.

Once completed, the new scalable technology will ensure that BTC has the required bandwidth to offer a variety of new services including FLOW TV and even smart home technology.

The company said this significant investment of $7.3 million in technology represents a commitment to the acquisition of important equipment, but also represents a substantial investment in the training of staff as well.

BTC technical teams on Grand Bahama were given the opportunity to participate first hand in the construction training program.