LOCAL telecommunications service provider, GTT, has said that it continues to work to connect more communities across Guyana, particularly areas with new housing schemes.

“Increasing internet penetration in Guyana is something we take seriously in order to bridge the digital divide,” GTT Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Justin Nedd said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Nedd was at the time speaking on the company’s plans for the remainder of 2019 and shared that fostering the creation of spaces was high on GTT’s agenda.

“We’ll be doing that [increasing internet penetration] more in 2019 with our high-speed. Fibre-optic network, as well as our advanced mobile network,” he said.

GTT’s Blaze, which was launched in 2017, uses the fibre-optic cable network and has been touted as the fastest internet service available in Guyana. More than 60,000 households and businesses are now capable of accessing this, according to Nedd.

In fact, he also shared that following the introduction of Blaze, the company has recorded a 400 per cent increase in internet traffic; more persons are particularly involved in video streaming services, now made more accessible through the provision of faster connection speeds.

Nedd told the Guyana Chronicle that presently, the company is building the connections for Blaze in Herstelling, Perseverance and at an area in Providence. This is work that will conclude in “a matter of months,” according to Nedd.

“There are all those housing schemes created and thousands of new homes [and] we’re touching those,” he said.

At the press conference he was also questioned as to when the services would be taken to out-of-city areas, specifically, such as Linden. In response, Nedd said that this would be done “soon.”

Last year, GTT had visited Berbice to look at introducing services in key areas such as Skeldon and Number 76 Village, Corentyne, and New Amsterdam, East Bank Berbice. The company also explored introducing the services in areas such as La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, and the Eccles Young Professionals Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara.

However, Nedd also explained to the Guyana Chronicle that cognisance must be taken of the enormous amount of work that goes into fostering these connections.

“Building the stations is one thing, but then there’s also the process of installing the connections in homes and businesses,” he said. “We do at least 100 connections a day and each one could take up to four hours, so you could just imagine or calculate the number of crews we have got out there.”

The work being done is “not insignificant,” according to Nedd, who also highlighted that the technical crew works seven days a week– with no days off.

He also indicated that the company also faces some challenges in setting up these networks, that would hinder the progress of the work done. The equipment needed to build the stations are not locally made and sometimes, he said, there may be transportation issues.

The move by the company to connect local communities is separate from the nationwide effort of the government to connect every Guyanese though its ‘eGovernance’ project. However, the government does work alongside GTT to provide these services.

“The Internet penetration rate in Guyana today stands at 305,007 persons. That means that 39.6 per cent of the current population of this country are using and connected to the Internet. It might sound low, but it’s over 300,000 persons,” Minister of Public Telecommunications Cathy Hughes had said in July, 2018.