Within the next six months a new cell phone provider is expected to enter the country’s mobile market and The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is not only upgrading all of its services as it prepares for this new competitive market but it also plans to launch its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services as early as next week, BTC’s Chief Executive Officer Leon Williams made the announcement during a press conference at the company’s headquarters on Wednesday.
“So we would start beta testing in Bimini starting next week and in the next two weeks we will deploy in Bimini and subsequently we will deploy the network in Cat Island and in Andros,” he said.
“We will look at the low hanging fruits in those settlements for example in places like Inagua where there is a small concentration and we will beta test with those customers, get all the bugs out. We will start in the Family Islands because we have been challenged by the prime minister to go to those areas where there is no TV at all, we will take that path before the market in New Providence.”
As for the monetary investment for BTC’s new IPTV services, Mr. Williams said that he was not prepared to share a figure; however he said that the introduction of IPTV is a part of BTC’s $65 million improvement package for the upgrade of all its services.
Mr. Williams explained that the upgrade to BTC’s broadband network in particular is critical to the implementation of IPTV.
“As we upgrade the broadband network to get better speeds, we’re taking a value added service that we’re putting on top of that broadband network and referring to it as IPTV, so in order to get IPTV into people’s homes we need to upgrade the broad band network because we need to be able to give them 10, 15, 40 gigabytes and megabytes in speed,” he said.
“While we are upgrading the broadband network, I should also mention that we’re all reducing prices, folks can now come in and get a broadband connectivity for a low as $9.99 per month for a package.”
The upgrade to all services at BTC includes its mobile networks, fix line, broadband and enterprise networks.
Meanwhile, Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Darron Cash is not at all excited about BTC’s announcement to venture into providing television services.
Mr. Cash told the Bahama Journal that he believes the company should first focus on fixing the issue of drop calls before expanding its range of services.
On Wednesday, Mr. Williams vowed to further reduce drop calls by next month.
At present the company records up to 40,000 drop calls per day but Mr. Williams said that this figure was a reduction from the 70,000 drop calls that were recorded a few months ago on a daily basis.
Within the next few weeks BTC is expected to install 20 new cell sites throughout the country to further reduce the amount of drop calls.
