The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is on track to regain market leadership in broadband Internet within the next two-three years, its chief executive revealing its existing customer base had doubled since 2011.

Geoff Houston said: “When we started out, the business was doing very bad on broadband. We, as a telephone company, we should be leading that broadband agenda. We set out very aggressively to transform the fixed-line business to enable us to offer broadband service.

Mr Houston, speaking during a recent presentation at the Rotary Club of East Nassau, said: “With broadband now, in terms of our customer take up, it’s going really well. We believe we have significantly increased our market share.

“I can confidently say that if we keep doing what we are doing now, within two to three years we will be the market leader in the Bahamas. Customers are enjoying the product; it’s the most affordable product in the market. We’re going to improve the speed, the quality of the offering and add more services with it.”

Of course, Cable Bahamas may have something to say about BTC’s broadband Internet ambitions. The BISX-listed rival operator has consistently claimed it enjoys a market leading 70--75 per cent customer share.

Mr Houston added that BTC was expecting to spend another $15-$20 million in 2014 to add more capacity to its mobile network. “Three years ago, when we acquired the business, we had roughly 30,000 customers using smartphones. Today, almost 200,000 people have smartphones. We have seen a huge upsurge in the usage of data, in particular,” said Mr Houston.

He added that almost one third of BTC’s income is now derived from mobile data usage. “We have had to invest a lot more than anticipated to keep up with demand. We have to invest a lot more over the next 12 months to boost capacity because it’s showing no signs of slowing down,” Mr Houston said.

“The network is carrying nearly two million calls per day more than before, which shows that an enormous number of voice calls are going on the network now.”

Mr Houston added that BTC was continuing the roll-out of its 4G LTE service, capable of delivering mobile Internet speeds up to five times faster than at present.

BTC has so far opened 15 Bahamian-owned franchise stores offering a full suite of services.