Bahamas News

Telecommunications regulators have issued a pivotal directive in what some have labeled as the highly contentious matter of interconnection between the dominant telecommunications provider the Bahamas Telecommunications Company and its rival the Systems Resource Group.

The PUC has determined that BTC must provide trunks and an interconnection link to enable SRG to link its network with BTC’s in Marsh Harbor, Abaco.

In a set of instructions issued to the two companies, dated October 8 and signed by Chairman Anthony Rolle, the PUC gave a three week deadline for the two to come to some arrangement about the interconnection point.

The decision stems from a dispute filed by SRG – whose trade name is IndiGO Networks – in March 2005. In that dispute, SRG alleged that BTC refused to interconnect the networks by providing circuits between its network in Marsh Harbour, Abaco and SRG’s network at its ‘Alta Vista’ location on the island.

“Systems Resource Group Limited is required, within 21 days from the date of this instruction to mutually agree a site with Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited to interconnect with Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s network at a Point of Interconnection determined by Systems Resource Group either (i) at Alta Vista, or (ii) at a two storey building located 50 feet south of Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s Exchange in Marsh Harbour or (iii) at any other technically feasible Point of Interconnection in Abaco,” said the document.

“Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited and Systems Resource Group Limited are each required to be responsible for its own costs of providing a terminal to its network and they are each required to be equally responsible for its share of the costs of a common interconnecting link with their respective networks in Marsh Harbour,” it added.

The PUC had given BTC 21 days from the date of the ruling to give SRG an estimate of the cost of the provision of the interconnection link, with a copy to be forwarded to the PUC.

That estimate was to have included a full breakdown of the equipment, labour and material costs as well as a full description of the technical characteristics of that link.

Both companies are to be responsible for the cost of providing a terminal to their respective networks.

The instructions given by the PUC to the two companies are in accordance with the interconnection guidelines for domestic and international voice services between fixed and mobile operators.

Those guidelines specifically relate to the provision of competitive services being offered like intra-island and inter-island voice telephony and international voice telephony (using BTC’s infrastructure).

IndiGO Networks has filed several complaints about BTC allegedly not facilitating interconnection, complaining that the company has essentially been frustrating the development of competition.

In BTC’s arguments to the PUC, it contended that in facilitating its interconnection with SRG, it would have affected the companies ‘dominance’ in the telecommunications market, contradicting the conditions under which BTC was formed under the Telecommunications Act. Citing specifically proposed interconnection in Abaco, SRG’s head Paul Hutton Ashkenny noted that his company made the request a long time ago and “to date, despite the fact that BTC is required under its license to provide interconnection to other operators at any technically feasible point, BTC has refused all efforts to bring about interconnection.”

Mr. Ashkenny also claimed that efforts to move forward on the provision of additional interconnection circuits have proven fruitless. He also lamented that had BTC failed to accommodate the routing of emergency service calls originating on IndiGO’s network saying it creates a significant breach in public safety.

Source: Bahama Journal