Members of the Bahamas’ Press Corp recently toured the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) hub of operations to learn about the advancement of the ongoing nation-wide build out of its Next Generation Network (NGN) and the current migration of BTC subscribers from the old 1970’s BaTelCo legacy network to the world-class, cutting edge NGN.

BTC’s Senior Manager of Public Relations Jerome Sawyer conducted the tour and a technical management team gave project updates and technical explanations.

“BTC is in the process of completing nation-wide, Next Generation Network (NGN) single fiber technology that combines and delivers to BTC fixed line subscribers, voice and data for phone and internet, and soon, access to local and international television programming; it is the top of the line, cutting edge platform replacing the 1970’s constructed BaTelCo landline infrastructure,” explained Mr. Sawyer. “As we are mid-way through the migration to NGN we thought it an ideal time to update the media and answer any questions they might have on the workings and eventual full benefits of NGN.”

Currently mid-way through an island by island nation-wide implementation NGN provides super-fast connectivity with greater reliability. Additionally, BaTelCo equipment used to occupy an entire room, NGN needs just 4 racks with resultant savings in space and physical plant allowing BTC to be more competitive on pricing as the cost of service delivery will drop. -more- 3.

In April 2012, Cat Island was the first island to be completely on NGN; Cat Island, Exuma, Inagua, Long Island and Abaco are now also connected and the majority of BTC subscribers on Grand Bahama and New Providence. There are a total of 130,000 landline customers on the BTC network and 70,000 have already been moved to the new NGN. The project completion date is March 2014 at a cost of $80 million dollars.