Published On:Friday, March 19, 2010

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

CABLE Bahamas expects to see "more traction" and increased take-up of the data/redundancy services provided by its Maxil Communications subsidiary during 2010, touting its facilities as "state-of-the-art and as good as any found in the first world".

Barry Williams, the BISX-listed company's vice-president of finance, told Tribune Business that Bahamian companies were increasingly looking to use Maxil's web hosting and disaster recovery facilities for a variety of functions.

"On the data, disaster recovery, Maxil side of things, we're looking to do something there, as more and more companies look to use us as a back-up facility, for off-site storage, or co-locate electronics in some of our facilities," Mr Williams told Tribune Business.

"We have a Class A facility here, as good as any facility in a first world country. It's real state-of-the-art, and has got all the back-up found in a first-class facility."

He added: "A lot of customers want recovery, redundancy and relocation services provided from this facility, and expect to see more traction in 2010 with customers taking up this service."

Looking at the other aspect of Cable Bahamas' data services, its 100 per cent-owned subsidiary, Caribbean Crossings, Mr Williams said the company - which owns the Bahamas Internet Cable System fibre optic sub-sea cable - did not perform quite to plan in 2009.

Caribbean Crossings, he explained, "didn't make what we thought it would. It was a little less than plan for 2009, but it's basically holding.

"It was up more than 1 per cent compared to the previous year, so there's still growth and traction in this business."

Looking ahead towards the rest of 2010, Mr Williams said Cable Bahamas planned to employ many of the same strategies it had successfully employed in 2009.

"We've come through a tough 2009, but with all things considered have done exceedingly well, and are going to apply the same strategies again," he told Tribune Business.

"We're up for the challenge, open to competition and are in the game. We're optimistic about 2010."