– but company has no intention of taking legal action against Digicel

THE Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) has recorded tens of millions of United States (US) dollars in losses because of their main competitor; Digicel’s alleged bypass of GTT’s subsea fibre optic network.

GTT, despite the odds, said that they are working through the loss with the hope of finding solutions and moving forward.

“We believe that it is in the tens of millions of US dollars but we are trying to work through it,” said Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GTT, Justin Nedd, during a press briefing at Herdmanston Lodge on Monday.

In recent days, Digicel has come under scrutiny from sections of the media and even their customers who have not been able to access data (internet) services.
The disruption of these services was reportedly because of the Suriname Government’s decision to shut down an alleged “illegal microwave link” that supplied data from Digicel-Suriname to Digicel-Guyana.

Digicel is yet to confirm those claims but telecommunications company, GTT has been accusing Digicel of the illegal act for years.

GTT which is the only authorised provider of subsea fibre optic telecommunication services, has, on several occasions, called for an investigation into Digicel’s alleged illegal, unlicensed trans-border link between Guyana and Suriname.

“In 2010 which is almost a decade ago, GTT landed the only subsea fibre optic cable in Guyana…it has the ability to supply the entire country with connectivity and internet,” said Nedd.

Despite Digicel’s alleged bypass of that service, the GTT CEO said that the company will not take legal actions because the company believes that the Surinamese regulators are executing their mandate. GTT continues to provide data to Digicel through the interconnection agreement between the companies.

Efforts to contact Digicel proved futile. From its launch in Jamaica 2001, Digicel has expanded rapidly and spans across 31 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific.

According to Digicel’s website, the company has invested over US $5 billion in the Digicel business worldwide and continues to invest to bring leading edge technologies to the markets in which they operate.

In light of the allegations against Digicel and with a possibility that the “microwave link” could be broken, Nedd believes, that GTT has the capacity to supply Digicel with data because in March this year, GTT’s fibre optic network was tested when the company had to carry the “traffic” for Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.

“We had to provide data to those two countries because there was an unusual outage in the two countries…the network was resilient enough to handle that traffic,” said Nedd, adding that since the network was established in 2010, the company continued to upgrade the system.

GTT has recorded immense growth in the use of the internet and as a result, they continue to improve their operations and the quality of services they offer.
But, ahead of a liberalised telecommunications sector, the company is calling for a level playing field. Nedd said the company is working with the government to finalise the regulation of the system by the end of the year.