Bahama Pundit

The BTC Dinosaur

by Simon

The unmistakeable symptom which demonstrated that BTC was becoming a dinosaur with diminished capacity surfaced as the bottom fell out of its long distance market almost overnight.  On the way to losing its outdated status as a state monopoly, the company started exhibiting the classic stages of grief.

First, BTC stuck its head in the sand, attempting to use legal tactics and lame arguments as to why it should maintain a laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank monopoly with outrageously high rates. 

Those rates continued to suck endless millions from businesses and homes despite long distance charges plummeting around the world, thanks to innovations from the internet to fibre optic cable and mobile phones.  In addition to rapidly changing technologies, the economics of telecommunications was upended globally even as BTC remained in the first stages of grief: denial and anger.

BTC did attempt the next stage, bargaining.  With fanfare it announced its introduction of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) to The Bahamas.  The announcement of ViBe was curious as the company tried to convince customers that this was a revolution in long distance service.  Too little.  Way too late. 

Lies, Dammed Lies and Emails!

by Larry Smith

Frankly, I am sick and tired of all those forwarded emails peddling scams, lies and hate propaganda.

This irksome correspondence used to derive mostly from unsophisticated internet users who thought they were doing their friends and relatives a favour by sending a useful safety tip or an interesting take on the news. But now it seems almost everyone is getting into the act - even well-educated and otherwise level-headed folks - and the information they are peddling grows more outrageous by the day.

Why is this? Well, as one blogger put it recently, "these forwards are not just a way of spreading an idea efficiently, they are a way of getting people to commit to the idea, or deepen their commitment, by the very act of forwarding it. This is a dangerous practice in a democracy: getting people to commit to ideas and beliefs which may be false, without any regard to the actual evidence."

The most egregious recent example came from a lawyer friend, and it had already been forwarded by several other Bahamian lawyers as a cautionary word to the wise. The email featured a link to a video, which purported to show the former health minister of Finland, Dr Rauni Kilde, warning that the swine flu vaccine is actually a bio-weapon intended to cripple the immune system for purposes of population control.

BTC Holds Bahamas Telecoms to Ransom

by Larry Smith

Last year, BTC introduced a new look as part of a plan to "foster improvement on every level of the communications spectrum."

The new corporate clothing retired BTC's earlier slogan - "Your First Choice" - in favour of a slightly less risible one claiming to be our "Connection to the World". This was a step toward "evolving and re-branding the company," the press releases said.

But evolution at BTC resembles creationism more than science - in other words, this is the way it always has been, and that's the way it will stay. It's been almost a decade since we started talking about BTCs privatisation as a matter of urgency, and ain't nothing happen yet, although State Finance Minister James Smith pops up every now and then with an optimistic update.

Breaking up the Internet

by Larry Smith

The Internet was under attack last week by hordes of politicos camped in Tunisia for the United Nations-sponsored World Information Summit.

Their attack was launched two years ago, when 175 countries agreed to build “a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented (global) Information Society.”

Their plan called for implementation of e-government, e-business, e-learning and e-health services, among other initiatives, around the world.

You might not know it, but our government published an e-commerce policy five years ago, and by next year we may have real government services online, like business and driver’s licenses. We are ahead of some countries, but way behind many.

While bridging the digital divide sounds wonderful, the real issue at last week’s conference was internet governance. The gloriously democratic World Wide Web is threatened with a takeover by a bunch of politically-directed bureaucrats whose first thought will be censorship.

The Bahamian Blogosphere

by Larry Smith

“A weblog, or blog, is a personal journal on the web. Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership while others are primarily intended for a close circle of family and friends.”
-- Technorati.com

Blogging is all the rage these days.

According to Technorati, which tracks these things, there are over 20 million blog sites on the Internet (including this site and several other Bahamian blogs described below).

Some trace their origin to diarists like Samuel Pepys, a 17th century Englishman who wrote a renowned daily record of life during interesting times. In fact, you can find his blog on the Internet today at pepysdiary.com.

Blogging’s biggest impact is that it has lowered the publishing bar: ”It used to take a great deal of time and money to get a message to thousands or even millions of people,” said Rick Hallihan at Blobservations.net, ”Now, anyone can start a blog for free.”

The Internet's 10th Anniversary

by Larry Smith

There’s been lots of hype lately about the 10th anniversary of the World Wide Web.

But the Internet has existed in one form or another since 1969, and was conceived even earlier. In fact, there are more Internet birthdays and inventors than you can shake a stick at.

Yet for most of us the Internet did appear 10 years ago, when a start-up company called Netscape introduced a commercial browser to surf the Web. And it was Netscape’s explosive public offering in August, 1995 that marked the birth of the Internet age.

Like the development of radar in World War 2 - the Internet’s roots go back to the darkest days of the Cold War. In a sense, it was Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev who launched the Internet in 1957 when he sent Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, into Earth orbit.