EFFORTS to provide a total of 200 Information and Communications Technology (ICT) hubs to Hinterland, Poor and Remote Communities (HPRCs) in Guyana have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the May/June rainy season and the project is now expected to be completed in 2021.

HPRC and ICT Access Project Manager at the Ministry of Public Telecommunications (MOPT), Phillip Walcott, relayed the information to stakeholders when the question was posed to him by the Guyana Chronicle at a Tourism Recovery Action Committee (TRAC) stakeholder consultation hosted online on Thursday.

“Before I came to this session, I was overlooking the clearing of the last five containers with the equipment. This was scheduled to have arrived since early in this year but COVID-19 slowed it down and the lockdown so we couldn’t get it. So, we’re only now getting the equipment. [Otherwise], all the equipment that is needed for the 200 hubs would have been in the country and would have been heading for installation but now we have to await the end of the rainy season. We don’t anticipate that we will complete this process —- which we had hoped to complete this year — until the middle or latter part of 2021,” Walcott said.

A total of 200 communities were identified for the establishment of ICT hubs and are divided as follows: Region One – 22; Region Two – 7; Region Three – 7; Region Four – 15; Region Five – 2; Region Six – 4; Region Seven – 33; Region Eight – 21; Region Nine – 52 and Region Ten – 37.

The equipment these hubs will possess include Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs); all-inclusive solar solutions; monthly VSAT bandwidth and network services free of cost; 12 laptops; one printer and scanner; one 32-inch television and security lights and cameras.

Even with the setback, Walcott assured: “We’ll be working, as soon as the rainy season is completed, to start installing the various hubs and we anticipate will take us about a year or more to complete the process.”

As part of the project, training will be provided for persons to use the computers and to conduct minor maintenance of equipment.

Walcott reminded that the hubs and their facilities are meant to be used by the community and, though it will not be able to accommodate all planned activities, it can go a far way in bridging the digital divide.

In addition to the work of the NDMA and ICT Access Project, Digicel has the capacity to provide coverage in 72of the 200 areas identified and the NDMA also works along with GTT. It should be noted, however, that the NDMA does provide VSAT services to government agencies outside of the HPRC Project.
Questioned on the cost to roll out internet connectivity to hinterland tourism, Walcott explained that such is determined by the availability of connectivity in a said area.

“NDMA liaises with both GTT and Digicel to see which agency has connectivity in a particular area and, if there is no connectivity, then that has to be provided. Only when that is done the cost can be worked out. So, the cost is specific to whether there is already an existing facility and therefore you just extend the signal or whether a new set of equipment has to be put down all together,” he explained.

He later added: “The government is really looking to provide, in unserved areas, giving the lead to the private providers to be able to give their services where ever possible [and] government’s commitment is that, where populations are too small, where there is not enough to make it economically viable for a private provider, then government will provide those services.”

On the issue of ICT and tourism, in his presentation, Walcott recommended that the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) compile a list of areas in need of connectivity to support business activity, and that the GTA should formally apply to the NDMA to have connectivity provided in areas with tourism activity.