Even as the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) investigates that network outage that resulted in the loss of service to thousands of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) customers earlier this year, it is also looking into a recent "decrease" in the quality of service offered by the telecoms company.

URCA's Director of Policy and Regulation Stephen Bereaux said the regulatory body has received a number of complaints regarding BTC's service. "We have been engaged on an ongoing basis with BTC generally about quality of service," Bereaux told The Nassau Guardian yesterday. "They provide certain statistics to us.

It's not as much information as we feel is necessary, hence we are going to put in place some reels to make sure they are watching more of their standards. But there has been a detected decrease in quality of service to an extent in the statistics they have provided, and they have been answering some of those questions. As you know they are engaged in a massive upgrade." BTC advised customers back in June that it would experience disruptions in June and July as it carried out upgrades to its Internet, cellular and landline platforms.

However, BTC CEO Geoff Houston said at the end of July that cell phone disruptions would likely continue until the end of September. However, disruptions still persist today. Bereaux said BTC is attempting to resolve those problems. "So we have been working on ensuring that we have the information and ensuring that what is being done is appropriate and adequate. A part of our powers is to enforce rules and penalize where appropriate, and so on.

But we do have to recognize that change and upgrades happen and to some extent they will present challenges from time to time. But we have to ensure that BTC is doing all it can do, and we are investigating that," he added. Bereaux said URCA is in the process of establishing rules so there is a clear standard that BTC is expected to provide to the public. As it stands now, there is a lack of proper regulations for service providers in the country.

BTC suffered a system-wide meltdown in June, which affected more than 300,000 mobile, landline and broadband customers. Company officials reported that a power outage knocked out BTC's network management center on Poinciana Drive, and a full investigation into the blackout has been launched. On June 22, URCA launched an investigation into BTC's actions regarding those outages. That investigation is still ongoing. Bereaux said URCA is still reviewing the information it has received.

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