Dear Editor,
GT&T’s recent move to block all VOIP resources on the internet could be considered just another attack on the freedom and rights of the Guyanese people. These resources were created by other companies overseas to make it easier and cheaper for family and friends to keep in contact.
In my opinion, GT&T does not have the authority to block or degrade any service provided by international companies via the internet. Guyanese have the right, just as do all other people in the world, to be able to use the services provided by Net2Phone, MediaRing, Skype, etc, to make international phone calls since they would be paying those international companies for the service.
Why should Guyanese pay the excessive prices that GT&T charges for their landline international services when there are cheaper alternatives? This seems to be greed on GT&T’s part since the people who would need the internet to make calls, would also make use of either GT&T’s ‘blazing fast’ DSL service.
By degrading VOIP and blocking VPN services it seems that GT&T wants to have its cake and eat it too.
How will the internet café owners and other GT&T customers be reimbursed for services already paid to those international companies that provide them with VOIP solutions? Not forgetting all the VPN solutions that would have been purchased and blocked by GT&T?
It has to be taken into consideration that GT&T does not own the internet; they only provide their customers with a connection or gateway to the internet, and all services offered on the internet should be made available to the customer. GT&T has no right to block services provided on the internet for their corporate benefit.
Why should someone pay $116 per minute to the United States, when you can use Net2Phone and pay the equivalent of $10 per minute? It must also be noted that VOIP calls are much clearer with less ‘lag time’ than GT&T’s landline service.
Our country cannot develop if we cannot use new technologies that are easily accessible on the internet because we are restricted by one corporate entity that seems to have the support of other organisations.
For one to fully understand how profit oriented GT&T really is you just have to remember the title given to Mr Gene Evelyn, the Director of Rate-Making. I have ‘Googled’ this job -title and it seems that currently Mr Evelyn is the only person in the world to hold such a title. I would like him to please explain to me why Guyanese have to pay such a high price for bandwidth.
It is shameful to see GT&T charge us $9,980/ month for a 256kbps (kilo-bits per second) connection when the same connection from the Telecommuni-cations Services of Trinidad and Tobago’s (TSTT) BLink Broadband using the same technology costs the equivalent of G$2,415/month.
What GT&T considers ‘blazing speed’ and high speed internet is their 512kbps connection, which costs $33,250/month. When using such an internet connection in Guyana, most users would be content with the speed at which web pages load and the download speeds achieved in which 100MB (megabytes) can be downloaded in 30 minutes. But to the seasoned internet user, a 512kbps connection is nothing compared to TSTT’s 10Mbps (10 megabit per second) connection which can download the same 100MB file in a mere 1 minute, with a cost equivalent of $21,280/month.
After looking at the huge difference between the two companies’ pricing schemes, I wonder how the Director of Rate Making at GT&T justifies that of his company.
What I am most confused about is GT&T’s latest bandwidth plan, the 1Mbps connection that they sell for $120,000/month. Why was it not advertised publicly, and why is the price so high? From my calculations, and I am no mathematician, a 1Mbps connection, could be considered as two (2) 512kbps connections, so how does the company explain how they came up with the price of $120,000/month? From my calculations it should work out to no more than $66,500/month.
I am reminded of when GT&T started an ad campaign when Digicel was introduced to the market. The ad campaign had a nationalistic theme, “It’s a Guyanese thing.” It is laughable to think that we are supporting a company that is hindering our progress in using new technologies that would encourage development. Why is the use and development of internet technologies for an entire country left solely in the hands of a company that appears to have no interest in the people supporting them, and why should we continue to support them?
GT&T says that they will have another fiber-optic link operational in Guyana by 2010, but why should we have to wait until then for affordable internet and have to endure restrictions to our internet service when the world at large can enjoy free and fair internet use?
Yours faithfully,
Josh I Vandall
