In the face of frequent dropped calls, lack of signal and other indicators of chronically poor service, it seems the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) will maintain its lucrative monopoly on cellular services for nearly a year-and-a-half longer than originally envisioned.
Prime Minister Perry Christie announced this week that the government has begun the process of selecting a second mobile service provider - a full seven months after BTC's monopoly officially came to an end - and that he expects a license to be awarded by the end of next year.
In making the announcement, Christie said: "While my government recognizes the Bahamas Telecommunications Company's efforts to continuously modernize its cellular services offerings here in The Bahamas, we nonetheless consider that in order to enable all Bahamians to benefit from, and participate in, an intensely integrated global economy, it is critical that access to mobile and broadband technology becomes more affordable and accessible in our society. Inevitably, competition in the provision of cellular mobile services will bring The Bahamas another step closer to making these goals reality."
Indeed, the positive effects of impending competition are already becoming clear. BTC has just announced a much-needed $65 million network upgrade. However, for all of Christie's stated enthusiasm for competition in the telecoms sector, he has yet to adequately explain how this year-and-a-half delay came about in the first place.
Just after the BTC monopoly was due to end in April, the prime minister made a vague attempt to blame the delay on the former Free National Movement (FNM) government.
He said: "The evidence is clear, supported by the record, that the intention at the time the 51 percent was negotiated and agreed was to ensure that the issue of competition in cellular mobile services was so legislated that competition would be unequivocally denied to Bahamians de jure until April 2014 and de facto until, essentially, 2015; having regard to the logistics for introducing competition."
Yet six months on, none of this evidence, which Christie claimed was so clear, has been offered to the public. As far as we know, the monopoly ended in April, and that should have been that.
Responding at the time, Shadow Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest said: "I find it hard to believe that the government would have been restrained from setting up the framework such that on the day of the expiration of the monopoly it could not immediately issue whatever request for proposals (RFP) it wanted to solicit investment in the sector."
According to Turnquest, Christie and his team "just weren't ready" and are seeking to cover their tracks.
This is a possibility. At the same time, cynics will note the much closer relationship between the Christie administration and BTC's owners since the government's farcical "buy-back" at the beginning of the year, which still left CWC as the majority shareholder.
Either way, while lip service is being paid to competition, the rest of us will just have to go on dealing with the daily inconvenience and frustration of poor cellular service. It seems we have no choice.

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