The Tribune

A $3 MILLION "goodwill gesture" is being offered by BTC in the wake of a blackout that crippled the company's landline, cell and broadband services.

As the probe into what caused Monday's national disruption continues, BTC said it will add minutes, data or talk time for every customer as part of a broad-based package.

Marlon Johnson, Vice President Brand and Channels, said the cost of the gesture could be close to $3 million, but the company "understood the magnitude of what happened and how it affected everyone in The Bahamas".

Starting at 12:01am on Saturday until 7am Monday, June 25, prepaid customers will receive $5 in free credit. In addition, all weekend long prepaid customers will be able to call anywhere in The Bahamas for $0.05 per minute, a 75 per cent discount over the normal weekend rate.

Pre-paid customers with data packages for smart phones or devices such as BlackBerrys, Androids (Samsung), iPhones or iPads have already received two free days that were added on to their 7-day or 30-day package.

Postpaid customers will get an entire weekend of domestic calls free between midnight Friday and Monday at 7am.

Data and landline customers will receive a $5 credit on their July bill. According to Mr Johnson, the average data customer uses about $1.60 day.

Benefits apply to those individuals who were active subscribers - those who showed activity on their account - between 7am on June 4 and midnight on June 18.

CEO Geoff Houston said: "We realise how this affected nearly every single person, business, facility and institution in The Bahamas. We know how frustrating it was and that is why we have said we are leaving no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this. Right now our focus is on making sure that people know we care and are doing this to demonstrate that respect."

Mr Houston said the gesture was in response to Monday's outage only.