Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday urged the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) to prepare for competition.
BTC's monopoly on the cellular market ends on April 6.
Christie said the end of the monopoly will come at a time when there is concern over the number of dropped calls and a recent outage that impacted thousands of cell phone and land line customers.
"On the sixth of this month, we are free to begin the process of liberalization," said Christie during the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation's National Conclave of Chamber of Commerce at SuperClubs Breezes.
"...So [BTC CEO Geoff Houston] should have something very interesting to say to you, notwithstanding he has to explain the breakdown and the dropped calls and so forth and so on.
"It is critical going forward. And I can tell you, in the arena of competition, as a major shareholder of BTC, one can readily anticipate in competition what it means when you say Bahamians like new things.
"I've been talking to them a lot and telling them to prepare for this new beginning of competition going forward."
The Ingraham administration sold 51 percent of BTC to CWC in April 2011.
As a condition of that sale, BTC was given a three-year monopoly.
According to the sale terms, a second cellular service provider can now enter the market.
Houston told The Guardian earlier this year that all available resources were being poured into improving infrastructure to prepare for liberalization of the sector.
Digicel, which has a strong presence throughout the Caribbean, has already expressed an interest in The Bahamas.
Christie said yesterday the government will be in a position to answer questions regarding which company will enter the market.
"This is another exciting period moving forward in The Bahamas," he said.
In January, the government announced it negotiated for CWC to give back nearly two percent of its shares to be placed in a trust for the Bahamian people.
That deal was expected to be finalized by March 31.
However, Christie said the matter will be concluded this week.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian