— New fibre optic cable operational from today
GUYANA Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) company is promising no internet down time with the Guyana-Suriname submarine fibre-optic cable operational from today and says the benefits will soon be felt across the country.
The company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mr. Yog Mahadeo, said the cable has positioned Guyana to step into the e-world and advance development of its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure.
He told the Guyana Chronicle that countrywide there will now be “no down time” as it relates to staying connected to the world.
However, Mahadeo announced that the increase in bandwidth to as much as four times and an upgrade in speed will start today with Georgetown.
“All our current customers in Georgetown who are DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) users will get free upgrades and new customers will be provided with a standard one megabytes per second package at the same cost others are paying — $9,980”, he said.
Mahadeo projected that the next two months will see accelerated sales in and around Georgetown.
The CFO stated that while the full advantages of the services will be experienced first by users in and around Georgetown, the next quarter will see steps taken to advance the service to other parts of the country.
According to him, this undertaking will be done in phases and will target systematically Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne), Timehri, RegionTen (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice) and other parts of the country.
Mahadeo said this development is in line with the vision for progress in the country outlined by President Bharrat Jagdeo.
“Guyana is now positioned to meet whatever need the average user can ‘e-magine’”, he said.

‘E-magine’

The ‘e-magine’ concept to promote the new and improved service, Mahadeo said, was deliberate to convey the message of sheer connectivity.
He said Guyana will be opening up to a series of new services that will become part of the Guyanese lifestyle, including e-security.
The CFO pointed out too that university students will also be able to access worldwide virtual libraries easier and more extensively.
“Guyana is now ready to take off on its ICT vision,” Mahadeo posited.
He attributed the success of this initiative to the 700 “hard working” GT&T employees who contributed to having the cable ready.
Mahadeo said the effort was home grown, home built, home developed, home distributed and home maintained.
He said the process of testing and configuration that had to be done before the cable was made operational was a success.
The cable, he told the Guyana Chronicle, was approved by an international cable organization whose name he withheld for corporate reasons.
GT&T aspired for gold standard certification because of the amount of money invested in the undertaking and the vision for ICT advancement in Guyana, Mahadeo offered.
The joint project between GT&T and the Surinamese telecommunications company TELSUR is a US$61M investment and GT&T’s contribution is US$30M.
The Guyana shore-end of the submarine fibre-optic cable was landed in January 9, this year.
On the same occasion President Jagdeo announced that the government has already made a down payment on another fibre-optic cable which will be routed through Brazil.
Officials said the other cable will specifically address e-governance, through which the government will use ICTs with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective.