BTC is set to introduce a raft of new products in 2013, and vows to focus on its business customers—offering them better connectivity and more efficient service.

“A big thrust you can expect to see from BTC this year is to get closer to our business customers and develop new products for that side of the market,” said BTC chief executive officer Geoff Houston. “In the business community it is all about data. We have invested significantly and positioned the company very well to start taking advantage of that data explosion.”

BTC is currently trialling its newest network—the Long Term Evolution (LTE) service—which can run up to ten times faster than the present Next Generation 4G Network (NGN). The company hopes to make LTE available in selected areas by the end of 2013.

A new television service is also undergoing trials. Houston says BTC aims to launch this offering by the end of summer this year.

“We have a huge agenda [and] we are not stopping,” he said. “We are very pleased and keen to get on to the next stage of this journey.”

The communications giant is gearing up ahead of the liberalization of the market in 2014. The company was privatized in 2011, under a $210-million deal that saw global firm Cable and Wireless Communications Plc buy a controlling 51 per cent share.

Since then BTC has invested $62 million in setting up the NGN and rolled out new flagship stores across the country, opening 11 outlets in an 18 month period. “We needed to put a stake in the ground to try to demonstrate the kind of business we want to become,” said Houston as he delivered an address at the Bahamas Business Outlook last week. “[We want to provide] the type of service we need to survive in a competitive market.”

The company is also focusing on addressing skills gaps in the organization and has made an online university, with a database of 5,000 courses, available to all BTC employees, according to Houston.

cmorris@dupuch.com