Scope and Objectives

In the exercise of the powers conferred upon it by section 8(1)(d) of the Communications Act, 2009,the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (“URCA”) hereby issues these Regulations relating to the reporting and mitigation of Outages affecting Public Electronic Communications Networks and Public Electronic Communication Services in The Bahamas.

The objectives of these Regulations are as follows:

(a) to ensure that URCA is notified by Licensees of Major Planned Outages, Major Emergency

Planned Outages, and Major Unplanned Outages in a timely and standardized manner;

(b) to ensure that URCA receives necessary information from Licensees to assess the magnitude

and frequency of Major Planned Outages, Major Emergency Planned Outages, and Major

Unplanned Outages;

(c) to facilitate URCA’s monitoring of Licensees’ service restoration activities with respect to Major

Planned Outages, Major Emergency Planned Outages, and Major Unplanned Outages;

(d) to ensure that URCA receives necessary information from Licensees to identify common

recurrent issues adversely impacting the functioning of Public Electronic Communications

Networks and Services in The Bahamas;

(e) to ensure that Licensees conduct in-depth analysis of the root causes of Major Unplanned

Outages; and

(f) to clarify URCA’s powers to require a Licensee to commission and bear the cost of a Compliance

Audit to assess whether such Licensee has implemented and complied with relevant industry

best practices, standards, specifications, and/or recommendations, in compliance with its duty

to mitigate and remedy Outages.

The full PDF can be found HERE