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…
NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS (31 OCTOBER 2022): As the regulator for country’s electricity, The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (“URCA”) has a responsibility to ensure the provision of safe, least cost, reliable and environmentally sustainable electricity throughout The Bahamas. As reliability of supply is one of the primary responsibilities of both Public Electricity Suppliers (PES) and Authorized Public Electricity Suppliers (APES) in the country, URCA is seeking to clarify existing regulations to ensure that it clearly identifies what is a ‘Major Outage’ for reporting purposes. URCA is cognizant that in The Bahamas small independent electricity supply networks are susceptible to disruptions; however,…
