Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) Company, Mr. Yog Mahadeo, said there were two glitches yesterday as the recently landed Guyana-Suriname submarine fibre-optic cable went operational. These were however addressed and GT&T technicians are maintaining a close watch on the cable’s functioning.
Reports reaching the Guyana Chronicle were that the telecommunications company’s promise of increased bandwidth and upgraded speed was not realized.
Mahadeo explained that the upgrade is being done in “waves,” which might be the reason that not everyone felt the impact of the upgrade.
“At any one time, 1,000 or 500 people are being upgraded per wave…we had glitches and the speed was slower, but this is the first day of operation,” he said.
The CFO said he is confident that subscribers will be pleased with the enhanced service.
According to Mahadeo, all current customers in Georgetown who are Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) users will get free upgrades and new customers will be provided with a standard one megabyte per second package at the same cost others are paying, that is $9980.
This undertaking will be done in phases and will target systematically Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice/ Corentyne), Timehri, Region10 (Upper Demerara/ Upper Berbice) and other parts of the country.
The joint project between GT&T and 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 on January 9 last.