Communication Breakdown! BTC customers of the Central Exumas unite for change
Petition to BTC Management Staff:
We as signatories reach out to you to express our united opinion in your failure to render marketed Communication Services as purchased to the Central Exumas and specifically, Farmers Cay, Great Guana Cay and the Black Point Settlement, Staniel Cay and the surrounding Cays.
In today’s day and age, large and small countries alike depend on data based and cellular based services. For those of us in the Out Islands of the Bahamas communications are as critical a component of infrastructure as power and water. 250,000 people visit the Family Islands each year and the growth rate in the Central Exumas has increased by 5% annually over the past five years.
Over the past few years we have experienced reduced dependability in our Data and Cellular Services and in this year alone, we have seen communications services reduced an estimated 50% of overall functionality based on bandwidth purchased and that delivered and slightly less than that relative to cellular connectivity. In specific issues include:
Data Service through WiFi:
The signal fails completely. In the past two months we have seen five disconnects lasting over twenty-four hours. The last failure occurring from Friday, 8-JUL at approximately 14:00 hours through Saturday, 9-JUL at approximately 15:00. Additionally, signals can cut in and out multiple times within a brief period. When this occurs, your customers incur 4G overages as their devices toggle between Wi-Fi and 4G.
When the signal is functioning, bandwidth is often too slow to support even the most basic of services such as WhatsAp and browsing to more high usage services such as Netflix, Google Browsing and YouTube. It can take minutes to conduct a simple on line search and there are multiple disconnects when streaming. Again, your customers are driven to use 4G bandwidth to conduct business and communicate.
Voice Service via Mobile Phone:
While mobile service functions more consistently than WiMax, there are still complete failures or significant connectivity and routing issues. Connectivity issues include failure to connect mobile to mobile and mobile to landline calls. When BTC systems cannot connect calls, the routing system directs the caller to automated notifications intimating why the party cannot be reached. This in-spite of conducting tests where devices which were confirmed on, within range and properly set up would not connect.
Voice Service via Landline:
Landlines do not function. There are very few regions or devices that can call into a landline or be called out to from a landline.
Your failure to provide efficient and dependable communications services as marketed effect the SAFETY and WELL BEING of our residents and visitors, creates SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC IMPACT to our local businesses, HINDERS the EDUCATION of our future leaders and creates PERSONAL HARDSHIP.
SAFETY: The effect here is obvious! Without modern communication tools, our residents and guests cannot call out for help and our nurses cannot call in for support. Police cannot effectively combat crime or serve. Enough said!
The ECONOMIC IMPACT is significant. For tourism, the most popular question by persons booking accommodations, slips or moorings in the Central Exumas is “do you have WiFi services”? The number one or only complaint of all traveler reviews to this area on via WEB based travel sites is “very poor to non-existent WiFi and voice service”. These realities cause many tourists to travel elsewhere or leave. Further to this, home rental and hotel businesses cannot provide consistent support during the inquiry and booking processes causing tourists to book with providers that are able to respond and follow up in a timely manner. Payment via credit card cannot be executed which leads to the manual recording of information so transactions can be completed when WiFi services are functioning again. In many instances, payments are then declined as creditors will not accept manually entered transactions due to fraud policies. In instances involving food and beverage sales, disconnections equate to not profit but loss as services have been rendered but cannot be billed! With this, some businesses revert to a cash only basis and many tourists will not carry cash. Logistics in way of aircraft and boat, are hampered as schedules evolve and pilots and captains are unable to contact their passengers or suppliers. This leads to loss time for passengers and in some cases, unnecessary bookings for accommodations, lost or damaged goods and additional costs incurred by our carriers as they reduce rates to satisfy the dissatisfied and incur costs to accommodate them or work to keep goods from being lost or damaged.
EDUCATION curriculums become solely dependent on text books leaving our future leaders no path to access WEB based learning tools or the expansive cultural content that can be resourced online. For those residents electing to educate their children through home schooling, on line live lessons and testing are interrupted leaving children with “incompletes” or “fails” due to disconnects.
PERSONAL HARDSHIP is endured as your customers cannot communicate with their loved ones, manage their financial affairs or organize travel, provisioning or medical needs consistently.
The Central Exumas are home to the third busiest airport in all of the Bahamas, the number one rated Sandals resort, the number one boutique resort in all the Bahamas, the largest Out Island anchorage in the Exumas, One of the most prestigious Land and Sea Parks in all the world and the Grand Master, Rolle Gray. We are the traditional Bahamas and it is time for BTC to return to the tradition of providing quality services, “Everyday”.
We, the signatories wish to have you recognize the short comings of the systems currently in place, functionality, equipment date of birth, current technology, current demand and expected growth and act to rectify these problems immediately.
Your response should be directed to your capable yet under supported technicians on Staniel Cay, Black Point, Farmers Cay and Mr. Randy Smith, Technical Manager, George Town. It is our hope that this petition will be the first and final step to formally address our unified call for improvement and no further action on our part will be required.
Sincerely
The Citizens, Residents and Visitors of the Central Exumas.
Updates
August 2, 2016
The silence from BTC management is unacceptable while our businesses and daily lives remain disconnected. Post this petition on your Facebook timeline right now to ensure they see we are not going anywhere. Take five minutes to email your local member of parliament and demand they investigate these infrastructure failures.
August 2, 2016
The momentum behind this push is real and it shows that BTC cannot ignore our outages any longer. Text this link to three friends in the Exumas right now to keep the pressure on. We need to flood the offices of our representatives with calls today.
Reached 100 supporters
August 2, 2016
84 Comments
The service that BTC is providing us in the Central Exumas is unacceptable. I have experienced up to 3 days with no communication whatsoever, this is not only appalling it is dangerous.
The Bahamas Out Islands have been subject to inferior communications services services for years. This is holding back the potential of these islands and the Bahamas as a country. Tourists are hesitant to travel to these islands and residents/citizens are reluctant to inhabit these islands for the same reasons.
As a traveler/boat owner, we depend upon our cellular/data service for access to weather reports to keep us safe and in touch with our families. We have paid for a service that you agreed to provide. If we cannot stay safe in the area, we (and others) will choose to travel elsewhere.
Being able to communicate with ailing family members as well as our financial institutions is the greatest worry and only negative that we experience each summer in the Exumas!!
BTC has not worked in years and they refuse to give any credit for their failure to fix problems. I have not been able to,use my land line for any incoming or outgoing calls for 4 years.
Year 2021 the same , nothing works .
As a visitor supporting the Bahamian economy, telecom service is important to me. Last year I bought a phone and hotspot and BTC sims that NEVER worked. Not even under the tower in the Hopetown AB office!
Sign Petition
We never post to your account. Social sign-in is used only to verify your signature.
Add a comment?
Your signature will be added via . Tell others why you're signing — it's optional.
By signing, you accept iPetitions Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Share Petition
Don't stop at signing, share the petition link with friends to multiply our impact
Copy link or share directly
Communication Breakdown! BTC customers of the Central Exumas unite for change
Petition to BTC Management Staff:
We as signatories reach out to you to express our united opinion in your failure to render marketed Communication Services as purchased to the Central Exumas and specifically, Farmers Cay, Great Guana Cay and the Black Point Settlement, Staniel Cay and the surrounding Cays.
In today’s day and age, large and small countries alike depend on data based and cellular based services. For those of us in the Out Islands of the Bahamas communications are as critical a component of infrastructure as power and water. 250,000 people visit the Family Islands each year and the growth rate in the Central Exumas has increased by 5% annually over the past five years.
Over the past few years we have experienced reduced dependability in our Data and Cellular Services and in this year alone, we have seen communications services reduced an estimated 50% of overall functionality based on bandwidth purchased and that delivered and slightly less than that relative to cellular connectivity. In specific issues include:
Data Service through WiFi:
The signal fails completely. In the past two months we have seen five disconnects lasting over twenty-four hours. The last failure occurring from Friday, 8-JUL at approximately 14:00 hours through Saturday, 9-JUL at approximately 15:00. Additionally, signals can cut in and out multiple times within a brief period. When this occurs, your customers incur 4G overages as their devices toggle between Wi-Fi and 4G.
When the signal is functioning, bandwidth is often too slow to support even the most basic of services such as WhatsAp and browsing to more high usage services such as Netflix, Google Browsing and YouTube. It can take minutes to conduct a simple on line search and there are multiple disconnects when streaming. Again, your customers are driven to use 4G bandwidth to conduct business and communicate.
Voice Service via Mobile Phone:
While mobile service functions more consistently than WiMax, there are still complete failures or significant connectivity and routing issues. Connectivity issues include failure to connect mobile to mobile and mobile to landline calls. When BTC systems cannot connect calls, the routing system directs the caller to automated notifications intimating why the party cannot be reached. This in-spite of conducting tests where devices which were confirmed on, within range and properly set up would not connect.
Voice Service via Landline:
Landlines do not function. There are very few regions or devices that can call into a landline or be called out to from a landline.
Your failure to provide efficient and dependable communications services as marketed effect the SAFETY and WELL BEING of our residents and visitors, creates SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC IMPACT to our local businesses, HINDERS the EDUCATION of our future leaders and creates PERSONAL HARDSHIP.
SAFETY: The effect here is obvious! Without modern communication tools, our residents and guests cannot call out for help and our nurses cannot call in for support. Police cannot effectively combat crime or serve. Enough said!
The ECONOMIC IMPACT is significant. For tourism, the most popular question by persons booking accommodations, slips or moorings in the Central Exumas is “do you have WiFi services”? The number one or only complaint of all traveler reviews to this area on via WEB based travel sites is “very poor to non-existent WiFi and voice service”. These realities cause many tourists to travel elsewhere or leave. Further to this, home rental and hotel businesses cannot provide consistent support during the inquiry and booking processes causing tourists to book with providers that are able to respond and follow up in a timely manner. Payment via credit card cannot be executed which leads to the manual recording of information so transactions can be completed when WiFi services are functioning again. In many instances, payments are then declined as creditors will not accept manually entered transactions due to fraud policies. In instances involving food and beverage sales, disconnections equate to not profit but loss as services have been rendered but cannot be billed! With this, some businesses revert to a cash only basis and many tourists will not carry cash. Logistics in way of aircraft and boat, are hampered as schedules evolve and pilots and captains are unable to contact their passengers or suppliers. This leads to loss time for passengers and in some cases, unnecessary bookings for accommodations, lost or damaged goods and additional costs incurred by our carriers as they reduce rates to satisfy the dissatisfied and incur costs to accommodate them or work to keep goods from being lost or damaged.
EDUCATION curriculums become solely dependent on text books leaving our future leaders no path to access WEB based learning tools or the expansive cultural content that can be resourced online. For those residents electing to educate their children through home schooling, on line live lessons and testing are interrupted leaving children with “incompletes” or “fails” due to disconnects.
PERSONAL HARDSHIP is endured as your customers cannot communicate with their loved ones, manage their financial affairs or organize travel, provisioning or medical needs consistently.
The Central Exumas are home to the third busiest airport in all of the Bahamas, the number one rated Sandals resort, the number one boutique resort in all the Bahamas, the largest Out Island anchorage in the Exumas, One of the most prestigious Land and Sea Parks in all the world and the Grand Master, Rolle Gray. We are the traditional Bahamas and it is time for BTC to return to the tradition of providing quality services, “Everyday”.
We, the signatories wish to have you recognize the short comings of the systems currently in place, functionality, equipment date of birth, current technology, current demand and expected growth and act to rectify these problems immediately.
Your response should be directed to your capable yet under supported technicians on Staniel Cay, Black Point, Farmers Cay and Mr. Randy Smith, Technical Manager, George Town. It is our hope that this petition will be the first and final step to formally address our unified call for improvement and no further action on our part will be required.
Sincerely
The Citizens, Residents and Visitors of the Central Exumas.
Updates
August 2, 2016
The silence from BTC management is unacceptable while our businesses and daily lives remain disconnected. Post this petition on your Facebook timeline right now to ensure they see we are not going anywhere. Take five minutes to email your local member of parliament and demand they investigate these infrastructure failures.
August 2, 2016
The momentum behind this push is real and it shows that BTC cannot ignore our outages any longer. Text this link to three friends in the Exumas right now to keep the pressure on. We need to flood the offices of our representatives with calls today.
Reached 100 supporters
August 2, 2016
84 Comments
I have a small research station near Farmers Cay. Internet is critical to our operations and has been entirely unreliable in the past couple of months. It is impossible for us to function under these circumstances.
The service that BTC is providing us in the Central Exumas is unacceptable. I have experienced up to 3 days with no communication whatsoever, this is not only appalling it is dangerous.
The Bahamas Out Islands have been subject to inferior communications services services for years. This is holding back the potential of these islands and the Bahamas as a country. Tourists are hesitant to travel to these islands and residents/citizens are reluctant to inhabit these islands for the same reasons.
As a traveler/boat owner, we depend upon our cellular/data service for access to weather reports to keep us safe and in touch with our families. We have paid for a service that you agreed to provide. If we cannot stay safe in the area, we (and others) will choose to travel elsewhere.
Being able to communicate with ailing family members as well as our financial institutions is the greatest worry and only negative that we experience each summer in the Exumas!!
BTC has not worked in years and they refuse to give any credit for their failure to fix problems. I have not been able to,use my land line for any incoming or outgoing calls for 4 years.
Year 2021 the same , nothing works .
As a visitor supporting the Bahamian economy, telecom service is important to me. Last year I bought a phone and hotspot and BTC sims that NEVER worked. Not even under the tower in the Hopetown AB office!
Help this petition grow
Share it with friends to help reach 250 signatures.
Sign Petition
We never post to your account. Social sign-in is used only to verify your signature.
Add a comment?
Your signature will be added via .
Tell others why you're signing — it's optional.
Signing with Google or Facebook verifies your signature instantly — no email needed.
By signing, you accept iPetitions Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Share Petition
Don't stop at signing, share the petition link with friends to multiply our impact
Petitions like this
Other petitions you might want to support
Scan to share
Anyone who scans this can sign the petition.
I have a small research station near Farmers Cay. Internet is critical to our operations and has been entirely unreliable in the past couple of months. It is impossible for us to function under these circumstances.