in the bahamas . for the unrelated company in bahrain see batelco . btc formerly called the bahamas telecommunications company ltd. batelco industry wireless telecommunication broadband internet iptv founded 1966 1966 founder government of the bahamas headquarters nassau new providence bahamas area served bahamas products mobile telephony wireless broadband services long distance fixed line broadband iptv owner bahamian government 49 % voting 49 economic cable & wireless communications 51 % voting 49 % economic national trust 2 % economic number of employees estimated 550 website www.btcbahamas.com btc is the primary telecommunications provider for the bahamas headquartered in nassau new providence . it is partly government owned and offers telephone internet and wireless services . btc is an acronym for the bahamas telecommunications company and offers telephone internet and wireless services . in new providence and grand bahama it operates a gsm based edge hspa hspa and lte network . dual class shares are 49 % economic shares 49 % voting shares of btc are owned by the government of the bahamas with 49 % economic shares 51 % voting shares owned by cable & wireless communications and 2 % economic shares in a national trust . contents 1 history 1.1 1892 late 90 s 1.2 from batelco to btc 1.3 privatization 2 services 3 retail locations 4 external links history edit 1892 late 90 s edit in 1892 the first telegraph cable landed in the bahamas . this submarine cable was connected from jupiter florida to the western district of new providence coming ashore in goodman s bay . the area then became known as cable beach . over the years technology advanced and on october 5 1906 the first telephone system was introduced with 150 subscribers in nassau . gradually the out islands began to enter the communications age with bimini getting wireless telegraphy in 1920 and grand bahama opening its first telegraph station in west end in 1925 . on december 16 1933 that first telephone service to the united states from the bahamas was introduced . after world war ii the telecommunications department of the bahamas began to make steady progress in its development . frequency shifters the first in the caribbean were installed in 1946 . an automatic time of day announcer was installed in nassau in 1951 the very first outside of the continental us . nine years later in 1960 a forward tropospheric scatter was installed between delaporte and florida city the second of its kind in this hemisphere the first being in cuba . in 1966 the government of the bahamas by an act of parliament incorporated the telecommunications department as the bahamas telecommunications corporation a quasi governmental corporation known as batelco . in 1967 the formerly expatriate run batelco got its first all bahamian executive team under the direction of r.e. knowles the first bahamian general manager . in 1971 direct distance dialing was introduced for batelco operators and in 1972 under new general manager albury e. curling a 7 million submarine cable was installed from west palm beach to eight mile rock through a joint venture agreement between at & t and batelco . robert bartlett took the reins of the corporation on october 15 1979 when he became general manager . under mr. bartlett s administration batelco moved from its rented location in the chase building on thompson boulevard to its own offices on john f. kennedy drive where the company s headquarters is currently located . in 1986 the corporation joined the caribbean association of national telecommunications organizations canto and hosted its annual meeting and trade show as well as acquiring the assets of the grand bahama telephone company . it was also in the late eighties that cellular telephone service was inaugurated in the bahamas . in 1990 robert bartlett retired and barrett russell succeeded him as general manager . in february 1992 fibre optics became a part of the batelco system enabling system upgrades throughout the archipelago including inagua where service was introduced in march of that year . sir albert miller took over as executive chairman of batelco in 1995 . the following year on april 10 1996 an agreement was signed for the engineering and installation of the bahamas ii submarine cable and on august 26 batelco entered the internet market with the introduction of batelnet . the 1990s ended with the introduction of class to residential customers bringing them caller id automatic recall and a number of other features . the end of the millennium also saw significant upgrades to its fiber optic system including a 26 million dollar cable between vero beach florida and eight mile rock owned by a consortium with batelco and at & t as the terminal parties . from batelco to btc edit the new millennium also marked a change from the name batelco . on september 4 2002 the company transitioned to the acronym btc . in the mid 2000s the gsm global system for mobile telephone system was introduced and replaced tdma time division multiple access . during this time the submarine bdsni cable was introduced connecting 14 islands of the bahamas . in 2006 the bhi or bahamas haiti international marked the first time btc partnered with another nation . using the bdsni cable btc links port au prince haiti with matthew town inagua providing the neighbouring nation with vibe i connect gsm wifi and other products and services . in 2007 btc partnered with cisco networks to build a new multiprotocol label switching mpls backbone . this new network allowed btc to provide new internet protocol ip services to their customers . in late 2007 in conjunction with the ministry of health btc tested a pilot program that allowed medical experts in new providence to read the vital signs of a patient located at a ministry of health clinic in coopers town abaco . during 2007 the six sigma program was created to reduce the response time to both fault resolution and the installation of services . the universal customer service representative csr was designed to allow a csr to work across different technologies products and services serving as a one stop shop for btc customers . in 2008 a new online directory bahamasypages . com was also introduced . privatization edit on april 6 2011 the government of the bahamas and cable & wireless communications cwc signed a document privatizing the bahamas telecommunications company btc and transferred 51 % of the public corporation to the london based company for a purchase price of 210 million . new payment methods including online minute loading were introduced . a single number call centre was launched . the elimination of long distance charges between islands for calls originating from cell phones was introduced and a half million dollar expansion transformed what had been an administrative complex into the largest cwc store in the caribbean . btc also began a multimillion dollar network overhaul to shift its data traffic from 2.5 g speed to 4g enabling the introduction of a host of high speed phones and devices on the market . in 2014 after a change in government a 2 % share of the company and controlling interest in btc was transferred from cwc back to government . services edit broadband and data dsl speed test wi fi i connect dsl my i connect email vibe unite metro ethernet talk it up calling card eztop up wireless prepaid postpaid roaming handsets mobile to mobile topup itext international texting mms voice c.l.a.s.s. telephone service homephone plus enterprise services key systems and pbx corporate internet leased lines & data circuits business lines satellite broadcast services international toll free retail locations edit there are currently 40 btc retail stores throughout the entire bahamas . these locations include hope town abaco man o war abaco marsh harbour abaco moore s island abaco sandy point abaco treasure cay abaco fresh creek andros mangrove cay andros nicholls town andros the bluff andros mangrove cay andros spring point acklins great harbour cay berry island bimini bimini cat island cat island church grove crooked island harbour island eleuthera rock sound eleuthera governors harbour eleuthera black point exuma george town exuma staniel cay exuma eight mile rock grand bahama pioneers way grand bahama seahorse drive grand bahama matthew town inagua albert town long cay deadmans cay long island simms long island abraham s bay mayaguana bay street new providence carmichael new providence fox hill new providence jfk drive new providence marathon mall new providence shirley street new providence duncan town ragged island port nelson rum cay cockburn town san salvador college of the bahamas new providence franchise locations on october 13 2012 the first btc franchise location was opened on the island of grand bahama in the britannia plaza on polaris drive . the grand bahama location is owned by keith rolle . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title btc bahamas & oldid 722484215 categories communications in the bahamascompanies of the bahamaspublic utilitiesmobile phone companies of the caribbeanhidden categories official website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 28 may 2016 at 12 37 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use 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