B.T.L. to install radio phones in congested areas
If you’ve been on a waiting list for a telephone, you may not have to wait much longer. B.T.L. is already installing fixed wireless phones in San Pedro and will begin hooking up customers in Belize City up to miles four and a half, Ladyville, Orange Walk and Belmopan in December. This week B.T.L. signed a one point six million dollar agreement with E.C.I. Telecom of Israel to acquire a radio link system which will allow them to install phones in areas which do not have the infrastructure necessary for the copper telephone lines. Customers using the new system won’t be able to detect any difference in the quality of the service and can use multiple lines, computers and fax machines. Head of Public Relations for B.T.L. Dionne Chamberlain and External Plan Manager Emerson Spence told News Five the radio link equipment will allow B.T.L. to keep pace with the increasing demand for phone service.
Dionne Chamberlain, P.R., B.T.L.
“This is our first spend on it. In June of this year we invested in San Pedro. One of the reasons is we have congestion in our existing network for people who needed telephone service. This meant that we had to find a solution that would enable them to have telephone service. The Belizean base is mushrooming quite a bit and it’s actually growing out of the area that we have access to in our external plant area for telephone positioning. What we had to do was find a solution that would be able to give customers in these concentrated areas telephone access.”
Emerson Spence, External Plant Manager
“The difference with the wireless local loop system is that the only thing that is eliminated is the copper plan. Instead what we do we connect the telephone lines to a radio based system at the exchange area and the lines are extended out to the customers via airwaves.
This unit that I have right here is a power supply. These units are AC powered and one requirement that we ask that they have a properly grounded one twenty volts AC outlet so that our system is properly protected and could provide reliable service. These power supplies have back up batteries installed in them so that once there is a blackout it can maintain service for up to eight hours.”
Q: “Is it a temporary solution or is this something that will work for a while?”
Dionne Chamberlain
“It will work for a while in cases where we can have it work but what happens is that we would have to continuously expand our plant. And once we’ve able to find out that we need an entire plant in a particular region we’re going to install that, move this one out and put it somewhere that really needs it. It could work as a temporary solution but it is actually robust and reliable enough for customers who need telephone service until we can expand further.”
The equipment installed at a customer’s residence or business varies depending on the terrain and an outside antenna may be required in some areas. Chamberlain says the radio link system is already being tested in Belize and so far has received rave reviews from customers. The installation fee is the same as for a normal phone and so are the service charges and rates.
