THE Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company (GT&T) is expected to comply with a directive from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) today, with respect to its appeal for an increase in landline rates in the last of a series of presentations before a ruling is made. The representatives during the last hearing appeared hesitant in providing direct responses when questioned by members of the PUC. Thereafter, there were burning discussions on their effectiveness if approval was granted which dragged the PUC to an ultimatum.

GT&T has therefore agreed to comply with the ultimatum of compiling a document of their income findings and possible new strategies anticipated to be put in place for the New Year.
This document is slated to be handed over to the members of PUC today for further examination of the GT&T appeal.
PUC Secretary and Attorney-at-law, Vidiahar Persaud told this publication that the answers have to be forthcoming, depending on the information/findings delivered by GT&T.
In their written response, Persaud stated that the PUC will be “cross-checking” the information to arrive at a balanced decision.

PREVIOUS HEARING
At the previous hearing, representatives of GT&T, Vice-President of Finance John Audet along with consultant Gene Evelyn together with other representatives of the company, noted that the company’s current quality of service stands at 3.5 gigabytes. Therefore, the company has long argued for a 4.5 gigabytes of spectrum to resolve the problems of the telephone services in rural areas. Moreover, the representatives also highlighted their biggest bugbear in wireless service which is “power” administered by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL).
Thereafter, the PUC felt that there is a thin line between the spectrum allocations in frequency together with economic issues hovering around GT&T, and therefore called for the production of a quota of income findings to further support their appeal.
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.
Therefore, 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 which will depend on their written response delivered today to the PUC.