B.T.L. exhibit previews future of telecommunications

Most of the news these days involving Belize Telecommunications Limited has to do with controversy: the ownership fight between Michael Ashcroft and Jeffrey Prosser, the labour dispute with its union, and the lawsuit filed by Christine Perriott over her termination. But despite the wrangling, the phones keep ringing and the gigabytes keep flowing. Today B.T.L. showed the public–and News Five’s Kendra Griffith–what’s new.

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
This morning Public Utilities C.E.O. Crescencio Sosa and all those passing through the City Centre had the opportunity to experience all things electronic as B.T.L. celebrated World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. This year’s theme is, “Connecting the Young: The Opportunities of Information Communication Technologies.” According to B.T.L. boss Dean Boyce, it’s a fitting message as young people are considered the driving force behind technology.

Dean Boyce, Chairman, B.T.L. Executive Committee
“The children, I know it’s a cliché, but they really are the future, you’ve got to get to them. They are the ones that will adapt to the new technologies faster than anyone else. So five, ten years time, all the children you see in this area, they will be going into the workforce. They are the ones that will be hands-on, applying themselves in all the new industries.”

To get to those youths, B.T.L. already has an internet in schools programme for secondary institutions and says it’s planning to introduce the project in all two hundred of the country’s primary schools.

Dean Boyce
“We are going to role out a new wireless service to the whole country and that would enable all the rural communities, including the schools, with a good quality voice and high speed internet. So that will enable us to deliver on our promise to deliver education, internet access to all children countrywide.”

And today those children were soaking up plenty of information at the different display booths.

Linette Canto, P.R. Executive, B.T.L.
“I think anybody who visits our booths here today will have the opportunity to really get a lot of information about B.T.L. and about the communications industry on a whole.”

The company has several projects in the pipeline including an upgrade to its G.S.M. network, an improved billing system, and new way to add credit to your prepaid cells called Fone Top-up.

Kevin Hope, Technology Development Mgr, B.T.L.
“The Fone Top-up service will allow the company to move away from a pin-based, e-card based system for prepaid customers, to a pin less system or cardless system.”

With the new system, merchants will be able to use a point-of-sale terminal, a website, or mobile phone to sell credit. Technology Development Manager Kevin Hope explains how the new system will work.

Kevin Hope
“What will happen here is you go to the merchant. If the merchant is using a point of sale terminal, then the merchant will collect from you the customer what is your mobile number that you need to “top up”. So they collect that information, you tell the merchant the value, how much you want to top up, the merchant will put in their unique clerk ID, that’s a security check to make sure that it’s security and then from there it’s just to click confirm.”

The credit is then immediately transferred to the number and customers will receive a text message informing them of the added value.

Kevin Hope
“The initial phase, we are looking at a certain amount of locations and terminals, but the plan is to go countrywide in a very short period of time and have this solution available to all our merchants countrywide.”

With 35,000 fixed lines and over three times as many cellular subscribers, volume has never been better for B.T.L. … even with the introduction of competition.

Dean Boyce
“Speednet has been a bit more sensible, a bit more progressive. They’ve grown from nought to thirty thousand subscribers; they’ve got some fixed wireless in place, so they’ve been growing. But over that same period we’ve grown in the last five years from about thirty thousand cellular to about a hundred and twenty thousand cellular, so it hasn’t really affected us.”

And even though the company has been receiving bad press in recent months with charges of union busting, Boyce says they are focussing on the future.

Dean Boyce
“I don’t want to talk really about what’s happened. What’s happened has happened. All we’re interested in is going forward. The future’s the only thing that counts, so going back to today’s event it’s all about the children and the future; so that’s B.T.L. We’re a new B.T.L. and we will show people what we can achieve.”

Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.

Today was also Employee Recognition Day for B.T.L. and this afternoon the company held a ceremony honouring some of its outstanding workers.