At around 11am on Wednesday, the 914 Repairs division of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) began receiving a number of complaints of outages from business customers in the Civic Industrial District in Grand Bahama surrounding Queen's Highway, according to Michael Laing, senior manager of BTC's technical division.
Investigations performed by BTC revealed that a private company performing contractual work for Kelly's Freeport Ltd., located on Yellow Pine Street, had excavated and damaged an 1800 pair distribution cable resulting in the problem, the official indicated.
Mr. Laing said BTC immediately marshaled its technical resources to affect the repairs, which involve further excavation of the damaged cable and replacement of approximately 200 feet of cable.
He said the mishap, which was costing BTC some $10,000, would have been resolved before midday on Friday, but that was not the case.
Meanwhile, many local businesspeople said they were losing revenue as a result.
Edward Duncombe, operations manager at Lucaya Shipping and Trading on Queens Highway, told The Journal the outage has affected the business adversely.
"We have a lot of international clients who we need to keep informed. We are doing that by email, but you know there is nothing like direct communication by the telephone," Mr. Duncombe said.
He said one line was available on Thursday, but as of Friday, all lines were down.
Alcott McIntosh, branch manager of Electrical Wholesale Enterprises (EWE), also located on Queens Highway, said being out of telephone and fax services from Thursday has taken its toll.
"We're dead in the water," Mr. McIntosh told The Bahama Journal on Friday.
He said the company does quite a lot of telephone business, which has been lost.
"We normally would have a lot of enquiries that result in sales that have been lost. I only hope our competition is having the same problem or else this would be worse for us," he said.
"It especially interferes with the collection of outstanding bills because on Fridays we make our regular collection calls."
But one manager said that since the outage there has been no marked difference in sales.
Ural Forbes, general manager of Bellevue Business Depot, said, "Customers are still coming in and shopping.
"Customers recognizing that the telephones are out are coming in to buy their needs as well as the sales agents are checking on various accounts to make sure [clients] are serviced as well."
Meanwhile, a cashier at GB Millwork Hardware located on Yellow Pine Street, told The Journal she was surprised to see that all lines were on again Friday morning.
Until services have been fully restored, Mr. Laing emphasized that customers report all outages to BTC's 914 Repairs division.
The Bahama Journal made attempts to speak to a representative at Kelly's Freeport Ltd., but no one would comment on the specifics of the incident up to press time.
By: Daphne McIntosh, The Bahama Journal
