BTC ‘4G’ leads to 800% increase in data use

The Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), the archipelago’s monopoly wireless provider, has reported a jump in voice and data traffic since the launch of its 3.5G HSDPA network – which the operator markets as ‘4G’ – in December last year. Local paper The Tribune quotes BTC CEO Geoff Houston as saying that the cellco noted a 60% increase in voice traffic and an 800% increase in data use. Meanwhile, the operator also notes that smartphone sales have increased from 3%, to around half of all handset sales. Houston added that 3.5G services are expected to be available on all islands before the end of the year. The announcement followed the revelation late last week that BTC was planning to build on its recent success in the data market by rolling out a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network next year. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, BTC will begin deploying LTE in January 2013 and expects to launch commercial services within Q1 2013.