NASSAU, The Bahamas – The Hon. Bradley Roberts, Minister of Works and Utilities, said on Wednesday, September 6 the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) Blackberry cellular network is a product that will challenge Bahamian subscribers to think outside of the traditional box.
“I can tell you that it is addictive. Once you begin to use it, you can not put it down. I am told that some folks refer to it as ‘Crackberry’,” Minister Roberts said as he officially launched BTC’s latest cellular product at SuperClub Breezes.
“This product has hit the country by storm. Everyone wants it even if they do not know what it is. I am told that there have been persons almost demanding that they have a Blackberry even though they do not have an email address,” he said.
Minister Roberts commended the “creative and innovative” staff of BTC, along with their partners Research In Motion (RIM)) and Nortel Networks for keeping The Bahamas on the cutting edge of technology and in a competitive position.
He also encouraged the management of BTC to “stay focused” and not to pay attention to the nay sayers.
“Anyone with sight can see that BTC in the last eight months has changed before our very eyes,” the Minister said.
Minister Roberts noted that many persons do things in a certain way, because they have always done it that way or were taught to do something in a certain way and never considered change.
“We might be better served, however, if moment by moment we routinely questioned our actions, implementing improvements as necessary and continually forcing ourselves to think ‘outside the box’ of how it has always been done.
“Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that life doesn’t come in a box. And it doesn’t need to be lived that way either. Blackberry is a product that will challenge us to think outside the traditional box,” he said.
Minister Roberts noted that BTC, over the last few months, has continued to re-brand itself.
He said BTC dropped its international and domestic long distance rates by four cents a minute, and two weeks ago launched its re-branded DSL services I-Connect, along with its Vibe offering, which are intended to save residents even more money on their telephone bills.
Minister Roberts also said BTC has introduced its customer care “EZPAY”, enabling customers to view and pay bills online with major credit cards. Customers, while online, can also reconnect their phones if it was disconnected for non-payment.
In addition, he said, customers can add features like call waiting to their telephone line in real time, saving them installation cost and top up their hello card.
Minister Roberts noted that in June, 2003, he announced the approval for BTC to contract Nortel to build a GSM cellular network overlay to lift the nationwide moratorium that had been placed on cellular subscription because the TDMA network was congested.
On February 9, 2004, the GSM cellular network was officially launched and the moratorium in New Providence was lifted.
Minister Roberts said with GSM launched in New Providence and Grand Bahama, there are over 120,000 GSM prepaid and 8,000 postpaid subscribers.
“I am further advised that BTC for the first seven months of 2006 earned over $21 million in roaming revenues from visitors to our country,” he said.
Minister Roberts said The Bahamas, with a population estimated at 307,000, has over 200,000 cellular subscribers.
The minister said when he was appointed to the Cabinet with ministerial responsibility for BTC in 2002, there were about 90,000 cellular subscribers on the TDMA network.
“This unprecedented growth in cellular subscription has necessitated the replacement of the 80,000 subscribers GSM switch, which was installed just two years ago in 2004, with a new switch having the capacity to handle 250,000 subscribers a few months ago,” he said.
Minister Roberts said the capacity is actively being reviewed with the view of increasing the capacity to 500,000.
He said a BTC post paid GSM phone can now be used to roam seamlessly in 55 countries, including the United States, Canada, the English-speaking Caribbean, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Russia.
“This fantastic growth did not come without some pain of congestion and drop calls. But as Minister responsible for BTC, I can assure that this network will be a world class network,” said Minister Roberts.
Minister Roberts said BTC is poised to launch this month GSM in Bimini at a cost of over one million dollars and in Abaco at a cost of over $14 million.
He said BTC and Nortel engineers are presently in Exuma installing the GSM network for that island.
“I am advised that BTC will have in place a GSM network on all the major Family Islands by Christmas,” Minister Roberts said.
