Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd. (BTC) president Lorraine Lyle yesterday said the company had not provided the kind of service its customers expected and promised to do better in the future.

"The widely accepted perception that BTC has not been on the ball when it comes to service delivery is a valid one,'' she said. "We have let customers down. We have appeared to be unresponsive. We have not embraced the changes that are sweeping our industry. And that is unacceptable.'' However, Ms Lyle said the company was making major changes to the way it operated and to its network in order to meet the future needs of customers and operate in a competitive environment.

The company's network was being upgraded so there would be fewer faults and a faster response time.

"We are evolving in our planning in order to minimise maintenance and maximise our ability to adapt new technologies to the unique challenges of Bermuda's geography and marketplace,'' she said. "The time is not that far away when our customers Island wide will be demanding high bandwidth connections. We plan to provide it.'' Changes are also being made to the way BTC deals with customers' problems.

While maintenance teams continue to travel around fixing problems as these occur, a separate team has been formed to concentrate on solving general problems.

"Historically, BTC dispatched teams daily to complete this work Island wide on an individual basis,'' Ms Lyle said. "These teams did, and continue to, operate as `firefighters', travelling from one call to the other.

"But now, we have pulled together a dedicated team whose mission is to concentrate on one major problem area at a time. This will enable us to get out of the spiral we are now in which is imperative if we are to continue to provide the services that you depend on.'' Ms Lyle said customers could also expect lower long distance prices. She said the company was unfairly blamed for the cost of long distance calls in and out of Bermuda because of the interconnection rate it charged Cable & Wireless Plc and TeleBermuda International Ltd.

BTC will reduce its interconnection rates in the future, but those reductions are passed on to the long-distance companies who may or may not decide to pass the savings on to customers, she said.

"At the end of the day, whether or not long distance rates truly come down when we lower our interconnection rate remains to be seen,'' Ms Lyle said.

"We have no control over the process after that point as how the carriers set their rates and profit margins are up to them. Indeed, a recent study by National Economic Research Associates determined that some long distance carriers in the United States not only failed to pass on their interconnection savings to consumers, but also actually increased their rates significantly.'' Ms Lyle was speaking at the weekly luncheon of the Hamilton Rotary.

Lorraine Lyle