OVER the year, more than 6,000 households and businesses have received Guyana Telephone & Telegraph’s (GTT’s) ‘Blaze’ high speed internet, however, some 4,000 are still on the waiting list.

During a press conference on Tuesday, GTT’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Justin Nedd said that the company is installing up to 120 connections per day and will continue to look for ways to accelerate the number. “That’s a good problem to have and it’s not a problem that we simply ignore or take lightly. We’re pushing very hard to reduce the waiting list and it’s not unusual for you to see technicians working into the night and in the early morning and on weekends to get services installed,” he said.

The CEO was, at the time, providing an update of the year 2018 thus far and provided a list of statistics to the media gathering at Herdmanston Lodge. Other data presented showed that, at any given time, more than 98 per cent of GTT’s landline and DSL connections were working with a fault rate of less than 2 per cent.

Meanwhile, with the introduction of Blaze, overall internet traffic grew by 13 per cent from January to June while the number of persons using landlines is decreasing. Nedd added that GTT is now more than 93 per cent more affordable than its competitor with a statutory tax rate of 45 per cent while its competitor’s stands at 27.5 per cent according to their audited financial statements.

Aiming to enhance its customer experience in the near future, GTT’s capital expenditure for the expansion of its Fiber-to-Home project is an over US$20M investment.

In the next 12-18 months the communities of Linden, Berbice and Bartica will receive upgraded services while GTT intends to deploy its services to areas such as Tuschen, Parika, New Herstelling and Perseverance. And, on the matter of improved customer service, the company has injected $40M each year for the last three year into training its employees which it believes is vital to the growth of its business and the country by extension.