GT&T yesterday commissioned the shore-end landing of the Suriname–Guyana Submarine Cable System (SG-SCS), a US$30 million investment, which the company stated will provide significant opportunities for the information technology sector here.
The commissioning ceremony took place at the Kingston seawall, and according to President Bharrat Jagdeo, who gave the feature address, he is pleased with the enhanced opportunities the venture would bring to Guyana, among them employment and development of the sector, and he noted that the landing of the cable shows how much Guyana has missed out and at the same time provides an indication of distance the sector has traversed over the years. He said he viewed the landing of the cable with a lot of optimism, as schools, hospitals and remote areas will have the opportunity to have access to technology. On this note the President stated that children of “poor people” will have a great chance of accessing technology when in the past that opportunity was only available to “rich kids. No society could allow that to happen.”
He said the Government of Guyana is working to enhance the ICT sector, and the administration is working along with several overseas-based companies in this regard, looking to “unveil the services of the sector”. The Head of State said sums of money have been paid to a US-based company to connect Guyana with Brazil through another fibre optic cable, which will terminate here. He said this venture is expected to be made concrete during the second or third quarter of this year.
The President congratulated GT&T on the landing of the SG-SCS, and expressed the hope that the project will see the disruptions of the Americas II cable become a thing of the past. He said government is committed to working with GT&T in the development of the sector.
GT&T’s CEO, Major General (rtd) Joe Singh said the landing of the SG-SCS is the company’s gift to Guyana. He said the project is the realisation of a vision of the company; delivering a network to Guyana which will last for years. Singh said that the President’s presence at yesterday’s ceremony signals his confidence in the telephone company. He recalled head of GT&T’s parent company Cornelius Prior’s meeting with the President in 2006 when the two discussed Guyana’s ICT strategy, saying it was beginning to bear fruit. He said GT&T had been working on the development and delivery of the project to the Guyanese populace ever since.
Landing of the 1,240 km repeatered submarine fibre optic cable was delayed by five days because of adverse weather conditions in neighboring Suriname as well as tidal conditions which parts of the Guyana coastland experienced. According to GT&T, the cable will connect Guyana and Suriname with Trinidad and Tobago and ultimately, the rest of the world. Some twenty-seven and a half km of cable currently on board a barge positioned outside the Kingston seawall will be carried out to sea and added aspects of the project will see the cable reaching Curipe Bay in Trinidad. The cable will then be connected with neigbouring Suriname and by the end of the year, the facilities in the three countries will be fully connected. GT&T has partnered with Telesur, Global Marine Systems Limited (GMSL) as well as several other companies who participated in various aspects of the project to land the cable here. The facility will make available 3,000 times the current bandwidth capacity in use locally, providing an improvement in the delivery of telecommunications and related services to Guyana.