ANOTHER fibre-optic cable bringing bandwidth into Guyana can only drive up competition, lowering the price paid for the service by Guyanese consumers, whether it’s for Internet connection on a personal computer, tablet, smartphone or even industrial purposes.
The more cables into the country, the cheaper bandwidth can be sold is essentially the argument of former President, Bharrat Jagdeo.

He, for the first time this past week since his three-year hiatus from the local public spotlight, addressed the now hotly debated Government-owned fibre-optic cable and supporting infrastructure, a project he initiated as his “last engagement.”
FREE WI-FI
Jagdeo met with a contingent from the local media corps on Thursday last at his Party’s Freedom House headquarters, and was grilled on a range of issues still current in public debate, and initiated under his tenure.
On the matter of the US multi-million-dollar fibre-optic project, Jagdeo told media operatives: “The cable was supposed to bring cheaper bandwidth into our country for the E-governance project and for our roll-out of free Wi-Fi (wireless Internet connection) to the public across Guyana.”
The beneficiaries would have also included, according to Jagdeo, those persons who would have received free laptops under the One Laptop Per Family Programme (OLPF), another of the projects initiated under his watch to complement Government’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) drive.
“The contract was awarded to several Guyanese companies to lay cable before I left office.”
Jagdeo said selling bandwidth from the Government’s fibre-optic cable to Guyanese at the time would have been for about $500 per a mega-byte; more than three times lower than the more than $2000 Guyana Telephone and Telephone Company (GT&T) was charging for the same amount of data transfer.
“That was the purpose of the project,” Jagdeo told media operatives before briefing them on the developments since.

CRITICAL REPORTAGE
The cable has been the focus of critical reportage over the years, and while the former president concedes problems with the laying of the cable in some sections, he insists things are being blown out of proportion.
He said the complaints range from difficult terrain to unforgiving weather which led, in part, to the cable being damaged, “so that the Government needed to spend some money on repairing the cable.”
Jagdeo said he was briefed and told that there was a proposal which modified the original plan somewhat.
“They would probably put … maybe bury the cable in conduits, which might be different; cost more,” he said.

MONOPLOY
Turning his attention to what he called the issue of a “monopoly on this cable,” the former president said, “That’s not true; I thought everyone would celebrate anyone who wants to bring in a cable.”
Jagdeo said that GT&T had landed a fibre-optic cable in Guyana, “but they are the only supplier of fibre-optic bandwidth now to Guyana.”
Digicel, the nation’s other telecommunications giant, has also been granted permission to land a fibre-optic cable in Guyana, Jagdeo reminded.
He said that with a third cable being landed in Guyana (now to be pursued under a joint venture with local and Venezuelan partners) “this fibre-optic cable will allow them to pass traffic [data] from northern Brazil, through Guyana, to North America.”
REDUNDANCY
In his engagement with the media corps, Jagdeo explained that in northern Brazil, there are concerns, since there is only a singular route for its data traffic through Venezuela, and as such there is also interest in redundancy in the system as an essential back-up. “But we don’t only need three cables,” according to the former President.
Jagdeo said in some countries, they operate as much as 20 cables. “The more cables we get,” he reasoned, “the lower the cost of bandwidth.” This means cheaper Internet services, he said, adding that what more cables will also mean is that “We can move to 4G applications quickly.”
The President, in explaining the technical jargon, “4G application,” pointed to the fact that this would allow a person to comfortably stream a movie live on smart-phone.
“It will change the landscape in Guyana, right now the cost of bandwidth is too high, because we only have a single cable,” said Jagdeo, in reference to the GT&T owned infrastructure.
He again criticised the GT&T service, saying at present in Guyana, “you can’t get enough bandwidth to even stream properly.”
The former president said he suspects if there were more private persons willing to invest their monies to land a fibre-optic cable in Guyana to supply internet service at a competitive rate, “the government will give you permission too.”

HULLABALOO AGAIN
Jagdeo told the media if there is a supplier that can sell bandwidth cheaper than GT&T the country benefits.
“As many cables as we can bring in would be good for the country, so why, why is this big hullabaloo again [over] this cable.”
He conceded that the cable was not laid properly and as such encountered problems, “but it is being fixed and there are others who will bring in cable.”
Jagdeo said the opening up of the telecommunications sector will be a national good, something that has seen GT&T, consistently over the years seeking to block Government’s ICT initiatives.
The Government’s fibre-optic cable in recent times has also become an elections hot topic; its cost, woes, the fact that the President’s son heads up the project, right down to its necessity and impact.
SCANDAL
Jagdeo is an executive member of the PPP/C and his party this past week caused to be published in the local media, full- page advertisements purporting to depict a scandal and an on-going campaign to paint Government, the party and its leaders as being corrupt through “unsubstantiated and malicious allegations carried as stories.”
It accuses the privately owned Kaieteur News and Stabroek News.
But would both Jagdeo and the PPP/C’s pronouncement’s leave unanswered questions still adrift, more so in face of the recently publicised contract document between Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, on behalf of Government and Faisal Mohamed on behalf of Dax Contracting Services?