The US$60 million Guyana/ Suriname Submarine Cable Project between GT&T and Suriname’s national telephone carrier Telesur is set to continue with near shore surveys slated to commence here shortly.

According to a release from GT&T, the Guyana leg of the marine survey to confirm the route for the new submarine fibre-optic cable system will begin on April 19 or 20. The marine survey vessel, MV Southern Relentless arrived in local waters on April 18.

This vessel along with another craft the SV GEO will conduct near shore surveys aimed at determining the best possible route for the landing of the new cable.  According to the release the vessels will spend 18-days in Guyana’s territorial waters.

GT&T said that this exercise follows a similar operation recently conducted off the shore of Suriname.

The two companies last December signed a joint agreement in Paramaribo for the construction of an 1174 km cable, which would result in an increase in telecom bandwith by 3, 000 to 4,000 times what is currently available through the Americas 11 Cable and satellite links. Several preparatory phases are to be completed during this year with the actual laying of the cable project to commence by the first quarter of 2010.

The GDF Coast Guard, the Maritime Administration Department, the Fisheries Department, Sea and River Defence Department, the Sea and River Defence Board, Ministry of Public Works- Works Services Group and the Environmental Protection Agency are all collaborating with GT&T in this exercise.

During the signing of the agreement in December, Chief Executive Officer of GT&T Major General (ret’d) Joe Singh said that “the new cable will ensure sufficient capacity to more than cover all foreseeable transmission requirements. The cable will also provide a more secure redundancy to the current Americas 11 and satellite links, virtually eliminating the possibility of international communication outage to residential and business users.”