Bermuda's telecommunications industry needs to keep up with its global counterparts otherwise it will be in danger of falling behind the rest of the world.

That is according to Bermuda CableVision's general manager Terry Roberson, who was speaking to The Royal Gazette in an exclusive interview about his company's achievements, the current state of the sector and his vision for the future.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Mr. Roberson, who has been in charge at the telecoms firm since October 2006, also talked of the impact on his business of the dispute with Bermuda Broadcasting Company (BBC) over carrying Channels 7 and 9, subsequent court case and appeal, the Olympic Games coverage debacle and competitor World On Wireless (WOW).

Mr. Roberson said he welcomed competition, as it pushed workers harder to strive to do better at their jobs, and added he was focused on his company first and foremost and did not worry about competitors such as WOW.

He said that CableVision had suffered little effect from the dispute with BBC, revealing that he received a total of 41 calls in 24 hours when Channels 7 and 9 were temporarily dropped on January 21 before being reinstated pending a decision by the Supreme Court at appeal, with a decision expected to be reached in mid-March.

Mr. Roberson also defended his company stance over the debacle of the Olympics coverage, saying that CableVision was acting on BBC's demands to black out the channels outside of Channel 9 showing the Games.

Japan, Korea and some parts of China were leading the way in global telecommunications and Bermuda had to strive to get closer to their standards.

"In some countries, telecoms companies are providing 200 Megabits to the home, with a plethora of services available from fluctuating your thermostat to security systems to just even turning off your cook wear in your kitchen," Mr. Roberson said. "The future is as bright as you want to imagine.

"When you look at Bermuda and the reform process, the way we are moving forward rapidly increases because you do not want to get too far behind these countries, otherwise catching up is an unfavourable position to be in." Mr. Roberson reckons that the Island has the technological infrastructure to match those of other leading countries at the moment and as reform is enacted companies will have more opportunities available to them. Change should be embraced because of its long-term benefit, he added.

And Mr. Roberson believes that the average home in Bermuda will use 10 Megabits of capacity in the future and that the country needed to catch up and even surpass most of the Caribbean islands that already offered such speeds.

He did not see any reason for concern about the new plans to deregulate the telecoms sector and its impact, with the possibility of some providers becoming one-stop shops offering the full package of services and monopolise the industry, while others are driven out of business.

"I really do not see anything developing at the present time," he said. "We have yet to see a finished copy of what the reform would be like and I think it would have various changes as we move forward to adapt to the needs of Bermuda.

"We are not in business to put other companies out of business — our business plan is to do what is in the best interest of our subscribers and provide them with the best services that they can get.

"I think that as reform comes about we will all learn to live in the same area and work together and by doing that you will find that we will be a much stronger country.

"There will have to be some give and take provided by all to come to a successful conclusion, but it is really a win-win situation for everyone."

During his time at the helm, Mr. Roberson has overseen everything from the change over to the all-digital network, the introduction of high-speed Internet for Internet Service Providers and bringing in new high definition programming.

"It has been a short time and a lot accomplished and of course one of our proudest achievements is the reduction of service calls," he said. "It is an incredible effort by all the people in our plant and the field.

"We have also achieved a same day, next day progress where you should be taken care of today or tomorrow. A lot of times we have been able to help our customers over the phone — our customer service staff have had to learn about a lot of new technology and it has been quite a change for our employees.

"There are so many other great things that could happen from video on demand to all digital boxes becoming like a VCR or DVR, allowing you to pause, rewind, stop and come back to watch a programme having missed nothing and even in the future possibly providing Voice Over Internet — there is a slew of data products that could be offered.

"The sky is the limit for technology these days because it changes so fast."

He views more streaming of video and business conferences over the Internet and corporations demanding higher data, speed and redundancy capabilities as an example of just some of the needs that CableVision would be able to meet via its highly-advanced fibre optic network.