Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BTC) expects to have a television service on offer by the end of March 2015, which will "be better and give better coverage" to customers than that offered by Cable Bahamas, Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC) CEO Phil Bentley said on Friday.
This came in an interview on the sidelines of a press conference in which Bentley said that the company intends to spend $170 million over the next three years in The Bahamas, a reduction from the $200 million announced in June, with spending in the areas of broadband and fiber networks, cell sites and in other areas.
Bentley told Guardian Business that the telecoms provider "should be doing a lot better" at serving its customers and the investments would help to addresss that.
Asked if, as alluded to in a January press conference, BTC intends to implement its television product in partnership with ZNS, Bentley told Guardian Business that the company would "like to do that".
"It's a good question. We absolutely want to offer a BTC product that can compete with Cable Bahamas and give better choice. We think our service will be better and our coverage will be better.
"So that's what we're going to do. If we can work with ZNS, then obviously that's an important broadcaster on the island and we'd like to do that."
BTC has spoken of the desire to implement TV in The Bahamas for some time.
In September 2012 then CEO Geoff Houston suggested the company would begin trials of the product in early 2013.
Houston had stated that BTC's TV product would have more than 100 channels and would leverage the carrier's existing NGN network and broadband offering.
The press conference held Friday was for the purposes of announcing the completion of the establishment of the BTC Foundation, into which two percent of the company's shares will be vested.
This comes after the government first announced the establishment of the foundation in January of this year, following negotiations. The foundation is intended to benefit charitable causes. CWC maintains 49 percent, along with board and management control.
Bentley said on Friday that the agreement is "good for BTC - creating stability in our investment climate; it's good for our business partner, the government, and, most importantly, it's good for the Bahamian people, as the foundation starts to invest in good cause."
A $1 million check was displayed which will be paid into the BTC foundation.
Bentley later called on customers not to switch companies when a new cell phone provider enters the Bahamian market, pointing to how BTC's profitability will relate to more funds going into the foundation: "Customers of BTC, don't switch to a new entrant!...Don't let the new entrant prosper at the expense of BTC, and don't let the BTC Foundation lose out on funding good causes."
As reported in Saturday's Nassau Guardian, Bentley also called on the government to provide suitable investment conditions for the company.
"To invest, we must have the right investment climate," said the CWC CEO.
He referred to the need for "fair regulation", encouraged the lowering of duties on smart phones, and the need for "flexibility" in immigration laws that would allow the company to engage "the services of international specialists".
Asked to comment on statements made by BTC CEO Leon Williams recently, in which he told Guardian Business that he views BTC as in a "do or die situation" heading into competition, due to weaknesses in a number of areas that may place it in an uncompetitive state, Bentley told Guardian Business that he, too, thinks BTC needs major improvements.
"The reality is that I feel we should be doing a lot better serving our customers in The Bahamas than we have been doing. If I look at measures of dropped calls, network reliability, power outages, we ought to have the best performing network here in The Bahamas, and we haven't."
Bentley added: "We've got to show real improvement this year, and that's what we're focused on.
We're putting a lot more cell sites in to improve coverage, more powerful radio signals to send signals within the cell network. We've got a lot of work going on at the moment to look at all our cell sites and make sure they're optimized."

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