The Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company’s (GT&T) E-magine broadband service will not likely be available to West Coast Demerara residents until some time next year, according to a report from the telecoms provider.
Stabroek Business understands that at an April 8, 2011 meeting between a delegation from the West Coast and GT&T Chief Executive Officer Yog Mahadeo to discuss the company’s failure to deliver on its promises to make the service available to residents by the end of March, the shift in the time frame for the delivery of the service was revealed.
Stabroek Business understands that during the frank and open meeting, Mahadeo outlined to the West Coast delegation “the many circumstances and challenges” being faced by the company. GT&T has already let it be known that bureaucracy associated with “government permission to accelerate progress” in the build-out of the E-magine service was a major constraint to moving ahead. In this context, Mahadeo reportedly conceded that the delay in extending the E-magine service to Berbice was also due to bureaucratic holdups. Additionally, this newspaper understands that the issue of extending the E-magine service to Linden also arose.
E-magine broadband is one of the outputs of the GT&T and TELESUR of Suriname sub-marine cable agreement, which has been the subject of uneasiness between the ATN subsidiary and Bharrat Jagdeo administration. These differences have come on the heels of earlier spats arising out of Jagdeo’s aggressive and sustained lobby for a liberalisation of the telecommunications sector.
Less than a year ago, as GT&T sought to put its marketing plan for the launch of its E-magine service into action, government ordered the dismantling of seven billboards, reportedly costing $4.9M, erected by the company with permission from the Georgetown City Council. At the time, however, Transport and Hydrau-lics Minister Robeson Benn, who has ordered the destruction of structures deemed illegal by the state, rejected the notion that City Hall could give any such permission, pointing out that his own Ministry should have been consulted before the billboards were erected. He cited Cap: 41:01 of the Roads Act as his authority. Despite the Minister’s outburst, however, telecoms sector watchers regarded the destruction of the billboards as a manifestation of the on-going differences between government and GT&T.
In January last year, President Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed government’s plans for an overland fibre optic cable from Brazil, having already advanced the full amount of US$1.7M to undertake installation of cable and terminal equipment. The President’s announcement coincided with the landing here of the US$30M GT&T-TELESUR cable. Critics have questioned the decision both from the standpoint of its affordability and from the perspective of what was felt in some quarters as an attempt to infringe on GT&T’s ability to earn from its investment.
