As the local consumer market plunges into the information superhighway, the demand is also stoking the coals of competition between the Bahamas Telecommunications Company and Cable Bahamas, high-speed Internet access providers.
Gone are the days of busy telephone lines, but what is heating up in its place is the marketing wars for the Bahamian consumer.
The two companies are thriving off the broadband infrastructure and Digital Subscriber Lines that provide quick and efficient access to the Internet.
Neck and neck in competition, the telephone company says it has over 5,000 DSL subscribers. But Cable Bahamas says it has secured more than 3,000 more customers.
“Approximately 60 percent of our customers are new Internet users. A good percentage of Batelnet’s dial up customers have moved up to DSL as well,” said Leon Williams’s senior vice president of operations and chief operating officer of BaTelCo.
Mr. Williams added that the company found that approximately 25 percent of their DSL client’s base switched over to BaTelNet from the other two main Internet Service Providers in the country.
Cable Bahamas, on the other hand, first launched its high-speed Internet services back in 2000. As of the end of August 2002 it had increased its subscribers by 308 percent, according to Director of Finance at Cable Bahamas Barry Williams.
“Internet revenue per subscriber per month exceeds $100 with monthly Internet revenue growing rapidly, breaking through the $700,000 plateau in June 2002,” Mr. Williams said.
οΎ
The Cable Company has set a target of 10,000 Internet subscribers by the end of the year. In a new marketing drive, Cable Bahamas is offering free modems for households with students, an initiative that could help the company meet its projected target.
BaTelCo officials apparently recognize the competition.
The company said that since the introduction of its OneLine DSL, its chief competitor has cut the price of its Broadband Cable offering by almost 50 percent, responding to BaTelCo’s aggressive marketing.
But some Cable Bahamas executives feel differently.
According to Cable Bahamas Director of Marketing and Pay-Per View David Burrows, based on 50,000 cable television customers with access services, The Bahamas has one of the highest penetrations of high speed Internet access in the world.
He said that Cable Bahamas believes that the strong level of consumers acceptance of its Internet service is attributable first to latent pent up market demand for high speed Internet access services and the fact that Cable Bahamas provides 24 hours a day seven days a week technical support customer care service.
