Will enable critical fibre optic ‘cover’ – Singh
The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) and Suriname’s TELESUR are to spend more than US$60M to provide an additional fibre-optic cable for telecommunications traffic to serve both countries.
In effect, the new cable will provide Guyana with crucial fibre optic redundancy that will protect the local telecommunications system against the kind of major disruption in traffic that occurred two years ago when a ship’s anchor broke the Americas 11 cable in the Atlantic off the coast of French Guiana.
GT&T’s Chief Executive Officer, Major General (ret’d) Joe Singh told Stabroek Business last week that installation of the new cable will be completed within 15 months and that it is expected to become operational within the first quarter of 2010. “We have recognized that cost and bandwidth availability are two of the very key drivers in terms of Guyana’s economic development and its ICT strategy. Additionally, because the Americas 11 cable comes in to Guyana through French Guiana and Suriname we have no control outside of our borders if there is a disruption. The new cable seeks to deal with the issues of capacity, reliability, redundancy and affordability,” Singh added.
Singh said that the decision to explore the possibility of installing an additional cable was taken two years ago. The deal is to be signed in Suriname on Monday.
Singh disclosed that another “spin-off” of the new cable is that Brazil is “very interested” in a possible link-up since Amazonas and Roraima currently depend largely on satellite communication. “Brazil recognizes the particular advantages of those states having a cable link to our cable station here since the cable will also have the capacity to provide bandwidth for those two states.”
Singh said that another expectation of the new cable is that GT&T will be able to provide “spurs” at different geographical areas in Guyana, including places like Linden, Kurupukari, Annai and Lethem which have the potential for either demographic shifts or economic activity.
The cable will run from Chaguaramas in Trinidad and Tobago to a branching unit in the Atlantic from where one spur will be diverted to Georgetown and a second to Paramaribo.
Guyana’s telecommunications traffic has been affected by cuts in the Americas 11 cable and Singh said that GT&T will have greater control over the security of the new cable than has been the case with Americas 11. “The new cable is more secure insofar as it is not subject to the vagaries that affect the Americas 11 cable. Where anything goes wrong with the Guyana branch in the Atlantic, we will have a redundancy path through Suriname.
If anything happens between the branching unit and Chaguaramas then Guyana and Suriname will have arrangements to deal with that eventuality.”
According to Singh the design of the new fibre optic cable will seek to guard against the vulnerabilities of the Americas 11 cable including ships’ anchors. “The new cable is being constructed with hazards in mind and will therefore be far more reliable than Americas 11. What this development also means is that we will have full redundancy on cable. At the moment our redundancy is on satellite which is very expensive and which we have had to invest in quite heavily over the past year. “
According to Singh the introduction of the new fibre optic cable will, from an economic standpoint and from the standpoint of the country’s ICT strategy, “place Guyana on a path where computers in schools, call centres and the efficient pursuit of business-related communications will now become entirely possible.
Meanwhile Singh has made it clear that there are no risks to the security of Guyana’s telecommunications traffic arising out of the sharing of the new cable with Suriname. He explained that Guyana and Suriname have separate control over the two links running from the branching unit in the Atlantic to Georgetown and Paramaribo, respectively. “Each of the two countries has separate and independent control over their respective branches of the cable and there is no danger of sabotage in the event of any souring of relations.” Singh said.
And the GT&T CEO told Stabroek Business that the company sees its investment in the new cable as a major development.
“What Guyanese need to be told is that no one else is making this kind of investment. Everyone else is piggy-backing on the infrastructure that GT&T have invested in. That, from a national interest standpoint ought to count for something,” Singh said.
