BTC continued its series of Family Island roll-outs on Monday with a formal ceremony introducing GSM Cellular and Blackberry service for residents, visitors and businesses in Long Island.
Vincent Peet, former Parliament Member for North Andros and the Berry Islands and Sen. Dr. Marcus Bethel, Minister of Utilities and the Environment were on hand for the launch joining BTC President Leon Williams, BTC Vice President, Wireless & Internet, Tellis Symonette, local BTC managers and staff and Androsians.
For Andros, the crab capital of the Bahamas, the launch was a sign of progress. At 2,300 square miles, Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas and fifth largest island in the Caribbean. Andros also boasts the world’s largest barrier reef. The island is becoming increasingly popular among celebrities with Jacques Costeau having exploring famed blue holes, tapings of ABC’s reality show The Bachelor and wedding site for actress/singer Solange Knowles, sister of Beyonce’. Andros is home to the AUTEC underwater testing facility, FOFAR field station and Androsia batik factory. With agricultural developments steadily increasing and tourists flocking in for some of the best eco-tours the Bahamas has to offer, Andros is on the brink of a business boom. Thanks to BTC’s new services, the island is sure to be on par with New Providence in regards to telecommunications.
With the majority of Androsians earning their living from agriculture, BTC’s launch of what has become the world’s most popular form of mobile telecommunications, GSM cellular along with BlackBerry, the sophisticated office packed in a phone, complete with Internet, e-mail and text capabilities, was welcome news for Andros’ 8,000 plus residents scattered in small communities about the island. In addition to local users, visitors onboard yachts or staying in resorts or private homes about the island will be able to use the BTC network to roam with Cingular or T-Mobile phones from the US, Rogers from Canada and Digicel from the Caribbean.
Today’s launch expanded the range of users of GSM prepaid or post-paid service in The Bahamas introduced in late 2004. By December 2006, of the total population of 307,000, some 203,000 residents were wireless customers, with more than half using GSM, according to BTC President Leon Williams. He also noted that the BTC network handles more than 2.1 million calls per day, over 181,000 text messages on any given day, up to 10,000 visitors are on the network.
“Someone recently asked me ‘Why invest so much in Andros with telecommunications?’”, said Williams. “I answered by saying ‘Why not Andros?’ We believe that every place in the Bahamas which is inhabited ought to have some form of communications. You should have access at anytime to contact your business partners in Nassau or abroad, log on to the internet so that your children can research or even attend school on-line or call your family members just to say ‘I love you’.”
The full Family Island roll-out was officially launched April 4 with hook-up to Rum Cay and Ragged Island, followed by an official launch in the Berry Islands April 20. In the past week Andros, Long Island Inagua, and Exuma all joined New Providence, Grand Bahama, Abaco and Bimini which already enjoy GSM cellular service. BTC has poured $114 million into the Family Islands to provide cellular service, part of a total $353 million in cutting edge technology infrastructure in the past five years.
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