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Telecommunications Infrastructure

In 1992, the Bahamas celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first submarine cable that connected it to the Florida shores thus beginning telecommunications with the rest of the world. The Bahamas telecommunications Corporation (BaTelCo) is the national telephone company. It is a quasi-public corporation, created in 1966, undergoing phases of privatization.

Recently, in conjunction with the Swiss telecommunications company Swiss Telecom PTT, BaTelCo developed a digital satellite communication system between Switzerland and The Bahamas. The Bahamas second leading industry, following tourism, is financial services. This is expected to reduce costs of transmitting data between the two locales by about 30 percent.

BaTelCo's services include telephone networks, facsimile, telex, cellular radio telephone, and private line services, packet switching, satellite leasing, and radio licensing. It has more than 64,000 phones in a 100% digital, fully-automated switching system, providing Direct Distance Dialing to more than 100 countries in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean.

Nortel Networks has partnered with BaTelCo since the 1970s when it installed a cross-bar switch in the Bahamas. In 2000, BaTelCo awarded the company a contract for more than US $13 million for the expansion and modernization of their switching network. The upgrade was to ensure Year 2000 compliancy of the existing BaTelCo network of Nortel Networks' DMS systems and to enable BaTelCo to provide advanced Custom Local Area Signaling Services (CLASS) such as Caller ID and Call Waiting ID to their customers.

The network expansion included Nortel Networks' DMS-10 system, DMS-100 and DMS-300 system base. BaTelCo has a fully digital network with over 100,000 DMS lines. The DMS-10 is deployed in 35 countries, and offers advanced digital switching technology.1

Telephones

Main lines in use: 99,000 (1997) 2
Mobile cellular: 2,400 (1993)

Telephone system

Domestic: totally automatic system; highly developed
International: tropospheric scatter and submarine cable to Florida; 3 coaxial submarine cables; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)3

Radio and Television

Radio broadcast stations: AM 3, FM 4, shortwave 0 (1998)
Radios: 215,000 (1997)
Television broadcast stations: 1 (1997)
Televisions: 67,000 (1997)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

ISPs: 3 (1999)4