By Ariana Gordon

SHOULD the Government of Guyana (GOG) fulfill its promise to liberalise the telecommunications sector before the end of 2016, Guyana will open the gates to investment. This is the view of Digicel Guyana’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kevin Kelly.

Kelly in an interview on Wednesday with the Guyana Chronicle at his Fort and Barrack Streets Kingston office said, once the sector became liberalized his company would then offer 4G service, residential internet and landline services and even a television service.

“Basically we’d hope to go into landline in Georgetown, residential international, and bring submarine fibre cable to the country,” he stated.

The Digicel Chief is excited about the future after liberalization and notes that with the sector being open to fair competition, all parties will benefit. He reminisced on the impact the Irish company made on the local market when it started business here in 2007.

“We would replicate that… in that people would have a choice of providers. At the moment, people are stuck with the landline, or residential international,” he said noting that there would be increased competition in those areas thereby allowing for a reduction in prices.

Kelly sad Guyana was the only country in the Caribbean apart from Cuba that does not provide customers with 4G network. According to him, with the liberalization of the telecommunications Guyana’s economy will thrive and the people will be the biggest beneficiaries.

“I am not selling this because I am with Digicel only…it will benefit school children, everybody. Once you have competition, the price comes down…right now you only have GTT selling certain aspects of it be it landline or whatever.”

“It would make it a lot easier for people to get stuff on the internet. People would be able to watch Netflix etc. It will have general impacts on the country,” the CEO added.

Kelly who has been living in Guyana for eight years said he strongly believed that Guyana stood to benefit tremendously from the competition.

“If we open the country up for business the economy itself would grow so even GTT itself would be financially better off because people will come in and create jobs,” he said. Kelly maintained that if the telecommunications sector was liberalized eight years ago, Guyana would have been far advanced.

“Every other Digicel market, including countries that are not as developed as Guyana, like Haiti, has 4G. If we had passed liberalization four years ago we would have so much down the road, I am not talking about Digicel, I am talking about the country…just getting jobs for our young people so that they have a choice to stay here…as opposed to migrating,” he added.

The CEO stressed that monopolies were not good in any shape or form and noted that the powers that be need to think about the country, noting that the monopoly that GTT held had not been honoured in toto. He argued that there were many communities in Guyana that should have received service from GTT but today were being served by Digicel.

“We have more mobile services than they have in the remote areas,” he remarked. The issue he said is bigger than the two telecommunications companies, noting that the country needed to be “freed up.”

“Free up the country and people will come and invest. At the moment people won’t invest and that’s the issue.”

Kelly hopes that the sector will be opened up before Guyana observes its 50th Independence celebration. This he believes would be symbolic of freedom in many aspects. He said once the monopoly comes to an end, Digicel is willing to roll out its plans immediately.

“It is about making the country available for investment and attracting people in because we have certain advantages here as a country that other countries around us don’t have. But we need to have an open market where people feel they can come and invest,” he added.

With approximately 300,000 customers presently, the company expects its customer base to grow significantly when it starts offering additional series. “What we are trying to do is bring a range of services that are in other Digicel markets,” Kelly stated.

When asked to highlight the main challenge affecting Digicel’s growth here in Guyana, the CEO said, “Our main challenge is the monopoly.”

“To be fair to Guyana, there is no major challenge except this monopoly holding the country over. It is impacting all aspects of the country,” he said referencing the Tourism sector. He explained that many persons from Europe for example would love to visit Guyana but due to the lack of some basic telecommunication features are reluctant.

Kelly said he had met with subject minister Catherine Hughes and said based on his discussions with her, he believes that government would fulfill its commitment of liberalizing the sector.

“We believe they would honour this. I would like them to pass it before the 50th [Independence] Anniversary. It would be nice.”

He said it was strange that both GTT and the government of Guyana have said they are in favour of liberalizing the system but unfortunately the process has been stalled for too long.

“The whole thing is holding the whole country up…every day that passes is every day that is lost from people traveling into this country or people doing business in this country. Say they had passed this legislation eight years ago, think about how much further the government’s infrastructure would be now. Whatever downside there is to not passing this legislation, the upside is 100% better.”

The CEO noted that with liberalization, more jobs would be created and it would be a win -win situation for all. “There would be no loser in this!” he remarked.

Over the years, the liberalization of the telecommunications sector here has been hamstrung by the decades-old monopoly held by GTT. Efforts were made by the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP) to break the monopoly but there were several failed attempts with the legislation being laid before the National Assembly more than once but never passed.

Meanwhile, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) has called on the GOG to live up to its promise of a liberalized telecommunications sector and demanded that government establish and announce specific timelines for liberalization to begin.

“The fact is that Guyana’s economic advancement and growth is being seriously handicapped by the country’s limited access to bandwidth and affordable high speed connectivity. The PSC looks forward to a Telecommunications Bill that will ensure unrestricted and unfettered competition by our telecommunications providers,” the PSC said.

It alluded to the fact that the absence of high speed affordable connectivity has left Guyana behind the rest of the world and the Caribbean, noting too that it hindered domestic and international investment in the creative innovation of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services, as well as the employment and productivity that this investment is noted to produce in all sectors.

GTT too has expressed optimism that the telecommunications sector will soon be liberalized. That company’s CEO Justin Nedd told Guyana Chronicle recently that once liberalized and the spectrum is granted, GTT would be in a better position to offer customers 3G and 4G services.

GT&T holds the monopoly on landline and international services. Digicel has to pay GTT for its mobile services bandwidth.

The Telecommunication Bill seeks to ensure a number of changes in the policies and operations of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) as well as create a level playing field in the sector by crafting a new set of telecommunications regulations based on those found in other countries.