The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) is currently conducting an investigation of numerous outages in electronic communications services throughout The Bahamas in recent months.
In August alone, there were significant outages in Andros, the Berry Islands, Exuma, Inagua, Mayaguana and Ragged Island. To date, services have been restored on these islands.
Outages and disruptions such as these, and those documented in previous months, have led to increased public concern over the reliability and quality of electronic communications services in The Bahamas.
URCA shares that concern and has been consistently engaging with all its stakeholders, which include BTC.
On 1 September, URCA met with BTC’s executive leadership team to discuss the most recent outages and the company’s mitigation plans to address the reported outages. BTC has assured URCA that to date it has addressed the reported outages and the company is taking the appropriate measures to avert these issues going forward.
While URCA has met with the leadership team of BTC, URCA is conducting its own inquiry/investigation as to the underlying or root causes of the outages.
URCA is committed to working with its stakeholders, including the government, service providers and the public to effectively strengthen the delivery of electronic communications services in The Bahamas.