The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), the country’s sole wireless provider has unveiled plans to roll out a 4G network at least four months earlier than previously planned. The UK-owned telco is investing USD43 million in the project, but has not stated which platform the network will be on. The most likely candidate is Long Term Evolution (LTE) which is being installed throughout the Caribbean holdings of parent company Cable & Wireless Communication (CWC). Construction of infrastructure is reportedly already underway, with the first phase to include the islands of Grand Bahama and New Providence.
CEO Geoff Houston said ‘we expect to have service here live in Grand Bahama by Christmas so you’ll be able to connect your iPad to a 4G network and the data speed we expect to achieve is probably 20 to 30 times faster than what you’re currently seeing on mobile phones’. BTC has dramatically accelerated its build-out, having previously told local press that it had hoped to begin installing a next generation network by April next year.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, BTC launched its 3G network in 2006, and had 27,000 subscribers using the service by the end of 2007. By the end of 2010 the amount had increased to 50,000.
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Hey Cw10304. You do know LTE and 4G are different, right? 4G is what TMobile and AT&T are using (which technically isn’t 4G) LTE is what Verizon is using. Which cannot possibly work here. So yeah, before you spout off at the mouth check your facts. Because your stupid is showing.
Since this “4G” network is gonna be LTE I wonder if C&W is aware that no Bahamian person owns a LTE phone! Unless they are gonna be giving them away because they are super expensive smart phones. The closest thing most Bahamians have for a smart phone is a Blackberry and Iphone and they do not have any LTE radios to utilize the frequency so they are useless to LTE “4G” speeds. Whats the point in investing in this if no one has phones to utilize it.
Actually BTC does not have 3G as stated in the article. What they are currently offering is an antiquated product called Edge. Which is 128 kbps – only 2x faster than dialup. It’s extremely slow.
4G would obviously be amazing…what would the price be? And, how long will it take? Will they actually meet their timeline?