The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) could be forced to shell out an additional $2 million to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) in fees for that nationwide blackout experienced last month, Journal Business understands.

BTC has already announced that the massive network failure caused them $1.7 million as they rolled out their “Back on Track Customer Compensation” plan over the weekend for its customers.

However, URCA officials told Journal Business that no the body has not yet made a decision on how much, if anything, BTC would have to pay as an investigation is still ongoing.

BTC sources have revealed though, that the figure could be as high as $2 million.

URCA officials also noted that BTC has requested an extension to submit their report on the failure to URCA.

The deadline is now April 22.

Journal Business has also been told that once the BTC report is received, then URCA will review it and make a final decision.

On April 5 BTC reimbursed their prepaid customers with $5.00 credit and on April 6 their postpaid customers received a credit of 100 on net-minutes.

BTC Senior Public Relations Manager Jerome Sawyer said at that time that the compensation value represents more than five times what customers consume on a daily basis.

“The total compensation to customers is over a million dollars at $1,700,000,” he said. “We estimate that the payout value represents approximately five times the regular daily consumption of the average customer. The prepaid customers compensation is $1,235,000 and for postpaid, $465,000. The differential in the totals reflects the larger prepaid customer base.”

BTC said an independent investigation is under way to ascertain the cause of the disruption.