Cable Bahamas Group sees ‘significant’ demand for data across fixed and wireless networks

Butler: Cable Bahamas will continue to waive fees until economy stabilizes

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – The Cable Bahamas Group’s top executive said yesterday there has been a ‘significant’ increase in demand for data across its fixed and wireless networks since the COVID-19 restrictions came into effect.

Franklyn Butler, group president and chief executive officer of the Cable Bahamas Group of companies, which includes Aliv spoke to increased demands in an interview with Eyewitness News.

“From a system perspective I would say that we are performing fairly well,” he said.

“Once the Emergency Order was put in place we saw a significant increase in demand for data on the network, both on our fixed and our wireless networks. We saw a significant spike which has generally tapered off. Week to week we have not seen any big difference because the order is still in place.”

Butler continued: “With that kind of demand and more people working remotely we have seen a lot more demand for streaming services on our network. We are trying to manage it as much as possible, particularly from a residential perspective. With more people working from home we are seeing higher demands on the residential side.

“On the commercial side we are seeing a mixed bag. When you have the closure of Atlantis, some of the other big resorts, gaming houses, liquor stores and so forth are not using much capacity you have sort of an offset there. We do have the government and other support type services requesting additional capacity and bandwidth.”

Butler noted that 75-80 percent of the company’s employees were working from home.

“This new normal is one that is a very exciting time for us as a organization. In late February, I met with all of our leaders and encouraged them to take this COVID-19 situation seriously. As an organization we were early in taking steps to prepare and secure sanitizers and protective gear for our field personnel which we released when we got our first confirmed case.

“Right now we have about 75-80 percent of our employees working from home. Our contact centre is being managed remotely from home. We are very proud of that. We did an employee survey to get feedback and overwhelmingly a large percentage, I think some 85 percent said they enjoyed working from home.”

In an effort to assist customers during the COVID-19 crisis, Butler noted that the company has waived reconnection fees and late fees for all customers.

“We will continue to waive those fees until we believe that the economy is back to some degree of stability,” he said.

“We are still are trying to do all we can to support our customers. In addition to the waiving of reconnection fees and late fees we continue to monitor  social media and where there have been performance issues we continue to reach out to our customers on Facebook to rectify those issues.”

Butler further noted that the company has now offered fifty free channels free of charge to customers with Cable Bahamas’ basic TV package.

“We continue to work with the Ministry of Education to provide free channels for learning and education,” he said.

‘That is something I have taken very seriously. I have asked our team to see how we can zero rate any educational websites as well as add a few channels so students across the length and breadth of the country can remain in some type of instructional environment despite not being able to attend school.”