NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS (15 December 2022): The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (“URCA”) has completed its review of Bahamas Power and Light Company Ltd. (BPL) proposed fuel charge increase.BPL made the announcement in early October 2022 of a glide path increase to commence on its November 2022 bills. As the regulator for the country’s electricity sector, URCA conducted a comprehensive review of BPL’s fuel charge increase proposal. At the conclusion of that review, URCA determined that it is satisfied that BPL has made an adequate case for the rate increases outlined in its press statement dated 04 October 2022. However,…
The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) has today issued its Revised Fee Schedule 2022. The Revised Fee Schedule 2022 includes an Application Fee for Satellite Broadband Internet User Terminals (Table 11C). The revised Fee Schedule 2022 can be found here.
NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS (5 DECEMBER 2022): The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (‘URCA’) issued a Final Determination and Order to Cable Bahamas Limited (‘CBL’) following URCA’s investigation into the quality of service of CBL’s pay television service. Among other things, URCA fines the licensee 2.025% of its monthly recurring pay TV charges for the year 2021. The investigation, commencing July 2021, was in response to numerous complaints from customers following CBL’s price applications to restructure/repackage its pay television packages in October 2020 and January 2021 for residential and business customers respectively. Specifically, URCA’s investigation reviewed recurring issues including outages, error messages,…
NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS (1 DECEMBER 2022): On 25 May 2022, the Minister responsible for the Electronic Communications Sector (ECS) in The Bahamas issued the Communications Act (Amendment To Schedule 3) Order, 2022 (“the Order”). Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of the Order, URCA will be required to conduct a verification process to determine whether a Licensee has made an investment, of not less than One Hundred Thousand Dollars, in emerging technology anywhere in The Bahamas, in order to qualify for reductions in the Communications Licence Fee (“Comms Licence Fee”). URCA has responsibility to bill and collect the Comms Licence Fee on behalf…
