THE Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on Wednesday held another hearing pertaining to a request by the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company (GT&T) for an increase in landline rates, which will subsequently lead to surges in costs for virtually all services.

During the hearing in the PUC’s conference room, GT&T’s Vice- President for Finance, John Audet; its consultant Gene Evelyn together with other representatives of the company, were all thoroughly interrogated by PUC’s Secretary, Chairman and Financial Analyst among others.

In the quest for increased rates, a plethora of issues were examined which led to further responses to be delivered by GT&T at a next hearing which is slated for January 16th. The debate-like hearing assessed issues in relation to the public’s benefit in order to arrive at a balanced decision.

The PUC’s representatives were apprehensive about GT&T’s possible failure to serve customers if the company’s request is approved; as such, Audet, along with GT&T’s consultant Evelyn underscored that the company is cognisant of the fact that there are persons who are not served especially in the rural areas. As such, they (GT&T’s reps) emphasised on the necessity for “spectrum” allocation in size and frequency, among others.

The representatives continued their responses, highlighting their biggest bug-bear in wireless service which is “power” administered by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL). In addition, the company’s current quality of service stands at 3.5 gigabytes; thus, the company has long argued for a 4.5 gigabytes of spectrum to resolve the problems of the telephone services in rural areas.
The PUC however, recognised that there is a thin line between the spectrum allocations in frequency alongside economic issues hovering around the company (GT&T). Therefore, the PUC suggested that the company produce a quota of income findings to further support their appeal for an increase in landline rates.
At the previous hearing, Audet had defended GT&T’s request by historically highlighting increased costs due to inflation in recent years; on the other hand, local landline rates service have not changed since their implementation in 2002. He noted that the rental charge for the dial-tone telephone service   (the monthly recurring charge) is 13 times less than that charged by rural telephone companies in the United States.
Moreover, the company stated in its application that was produced in early 2014 that it not only wants to increase its landline rates, but also installations, additional jacks, applications, wake-up-calls, voicemails and re-connection fees among others. As such, the requested increase in rates will then hover around 20-60 percent on current charges. The PUC however, is still contemplating the company’s request based on future hearings.

(Shivanie Sugrim)