Today the Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA) published on its website its Statement of Results and Final Decision following the public consultation on the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd.’s (BTC) Proposed Charging for Interconnection Joining Services (ECS 12/2011). This document summarizes and responds to the substantive comments and/or points of clarification raised by respondents to the consultation and sets forth URCA’s final decision on the structure and level of charges for services to be included in BTC’s URCA-approved Reference Access and Interconnection Offer (RAIO).

Publication of this statement brings to an end the public consultation process on the Significant Market Power (SMP) obligation requiring BTC to prepare and publish a RAIO. The RAIO sets out the terms and conditions upon which BTC will offer access and/or interconnection services to other operators in The Bahamas.

Arising from URCA’s Statement of Results and Final Decision is the requirement for BTC to replace the charges for joining services within its draft final RAIO with those specified by URCA. As part of the compliance process outlined in Section 5.3.3 of URCA’s Final Decision on BTC’s SMP Obligations:

• BTC must amend the tariff schedule of its draft final RAIO to reflect the charges specified by URCA.
• BTC must resubmit the amended RAIO document (including its amended tariff schedule) to URCA on or before 6 June 2011. BTC should note that this is the same deadline date set by URCA for BTC to implement other required changes to its RAIO and resubmit the complete document to URCA for further review.
• URCA shall review the resubmission to ensure that BTC has satisfactorily implemented URCA’s 22 February 2011 Final Decision on BTC’s draft RAIO and the final charges set out in the document published today. On the basis that BTC will implement all changes required by URCA, URCA may issue a confirmation of compliance with BTC’s RAIO obligation for the purposes of Section 116 of the Communications Act.
• BTC would then be required to publish the final (approved) RAIO within ten (10) days online on its website.