Dear Editor,
Our utility companies in Guyana have all earned a big fat F- grade for the manner in which they provided services to the people in 2009. Guyanese have had a very turbulent year dealing with the two major utility providers, GPL and GT&T. They both provide essential services. The services of GT&T are so essential that a breakdown or degradation of its communication services not only affects telephone but also internet platforms throughout the coast and interior.

Contact within the nation and out of the nation becomes severely downgraded, and even non-existent at times. As for GPL, they provide electricity, something which cannot be stored but which can only be accessed as it is made available by the power company. I wrote so many letters about GPL in 2009, but to little avail. Electricity powers (literally and figuratively) a nation. We have become a nation extremely hungry for this commodity over the years. We have gone ‘appliance- crazy’ and every day more appliances are added to the power grid, thus more load, and as a result there is more demand on GPL to provide (or not) an efficient and reliable supply of electricity.

At the moment (Wednesday), there is a problem with the internet platform in Guyana (or somewhere in the Guianas) resulting in GT&T’s broadband customers not accessing Yahoo mail, Yahoo websites, and the very used and popular chat programme which users depend on to stay instantly in touch with  others, Yahoo Messenger. This problem has existed for over a week now. Yet I am shocked to say that GT&T, which I respect a lot, has not informed its customers of the nature of the problem, or the period it would take for it to be rectified. They have not even announced a problem with the Yahoo routers or services to Guyana. All that is going around is speculation and more speculation. I created a G-mail account the other day, with the help of a friend, and I am using that email for now until Yahoo is rectified. But that’s not the end of GT&T’s shortcomings.

In 2009, the Americas II Fibre Optic Submarine Cable located several miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, which is a vital link between Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana (and other nations close by) and the Internet platform, has failed fifteen times! These failures did not include several outages and planned maintenance to the cable which resulted in internet downtime in specified areas.

The severing (sabotage or otherwise) of internet cables that are underground in Guyana was not included as well, as this happened a few times in 2009. The failures did not last for more than a day (at least in 2008), but just imagine, our nation was vulnerable to so many bad things, due to the lapse in communication systems through the internet fifteen times in twelve months. We are just a few days into 2010, and there has already been an ‘outage’ of the Americas II cable.

This is sad indeed. Sad in that a company of stature such as GT&T (which I do not wholly blame for Americas II failures) does not properly inform customers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as to the true nature and extent of problems when they arise. Why hide certain things?

In January 2009, there were 19 blackouts in East Berbice; February, 19; March, 7; April, 20;  May 12; about 20 each in June and July; August, 19; it got really bad with 28 in September; 24  in October; 9 in November; and 28 in December.

That gives us a total of over 240 blackouts last year (give or take a few, but these estimates are reasonably accurate). March and October were the best months with just over 6 blackouts per month.

GPL did not hesitate to give Guyanese a reality check as the holiday ended on New Year’s Day last Friday evening with the very first blackout in Berbice for 2010. To date, there have already been 6 blackouts in the area. Thanks, GPL, at least you’re honest to let customers and Berbicians know what they should expect from you guys in 2010. Some things never change; in fact, they go from worse to worst. Berbicians, Guyanese, brace yourselves!

Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran