Friday June 22, 2012, the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) advised the Bahamas Telecommunication Company Ltd (BTC) of the launch of its investigation into BTC’s actions regarding the June 18th and 19th network outages. The regulator advised that the investigation will address two core issues: Whether BTC took all reasonably practicable measures to prevent such network outages Upon the occurrence of the network outage, whether BTC took all reasonably practicable steps to restore the affected networks within the shortest time frame possible The network outage affected both BTC’s fixed and mobile networks. URCA has given BTC a July 9,…
On June 6, 2012, the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) released its Statement of Results and Final Determination on the regulator’s public consultation for licensee handling of consumer complaints.The principal objective of the consultation (launched December 2011) has been to establish minimum standards by which URCA licensees, providing services to the public for commercial gain, will be required to set out their own complaints handling practices and procedures. Requirements include but are not limited to: Licensees must advise consumers of their right to complain and of the existence of a mechanism to do so, which must be reasonably accessible…
On May 30, 2012, The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Number Portability Administration Service, thereby commencing a selection process. As part of the process to implement number portability, URCA also on this date issued a preliminary determination [URCA document reference, ECS 15/2012, https://urcabahamas.bs/publications.php?cmd=view&id=134] in which URCA indicates that service provider number portability will be implemented for fixed (land line) services in The Bahamas as soon as economically and technically feasible, and will be implemented using the All Call Query routing method, with a centralized database and administration service to be maintained…
The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) will hold its annual Oral Hearing on Tuesday May 22nd at 6:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Harry C. Moore Library, The College of The Bahamas. At this hearing, the Board will present URCA’s 2011 Annual Report and its plan of projects and activities for 2012. Persons wishing to obtain copies of these documents prior to this meeting may access a copy via the following link on the URCA website, https://urcabahamas.bs/download/000240800.pdf. This will be the third such hearing, since URCA’s 2009 establishment. The URCA Act, 41(7) requires that, URCA provide such a…
