Over the last several weeks, residents in some Family Islands have experienced down time with their landline, internet, and mobile services, due to power-related issues and malicious acts. The islands with recent outages include Grand Bahama, Abaco, South Andros, Mangrove Cay, and Mayaguana.
CEO, Sameer Bhatti said, “We apologize to our customers in the Family Islands that have been experiencing issues over the last few weeks. Many of these outages were due to power-related issues that impacted our ability to provide connectivity. We are in talks with Bahamas Power and Light, and we are working collectively to mitigate recurring instances. In Mayaguana, there was a “brownout” which resulted in a drop in the necessary voltage required to operate our network equipment on the island. This subsequently caused damage to our air conditioning unit, which is necessary to keep our equipment functional. The equipment in Mayaguana is connected to Inagua, which
also caused issues there.”
Bhatti also noted that, “In South Andros, a lightning strike damaged equipment and resulted in down time in Mangrove Cay. In Abaco, our fiber was cut by thieves causing services to be down. We encourage anyone with information to report it to the Police. In Grand Bahama, we have had numerous issues with copper theft and fiber cutting, which were reported to the Police. We are pleased to report that the Police have apprehended the culprits.”
BTC will be compensating customers for the inconvenience of these outages, and customers will see the same noted in their upcoming bills.
Looking to the future, Bhatti notes, “Reliable connectivity throughout our islands is very important to us. We are working on new technology, which we hope to announce in the near future. We continue to work on solutions that will benefit our customers across the country.”
BTC is also continuing its copper “clean-up” exercise in Cat Island and Long Island.
Source: Indira Collie
