The award of premium services cable licences in 2010 to two operators – ahead of others – has raised again the question of favouritism.
Brian Yong and Vishok Persaud were granted licences while veteran broadcaster Anthony Vieira was snubbed even though his proposal entailed revenue to the city of Georgetown. Stabroek News has attempted to secure interviews with Yong and Persaud on this matter but has been unsuccessful.
Interestingly, in the year prior to the granting of the licence, both Yong and Persaud were connected in different ways to the campaign to have former President Bharrat Jagdeo re-elected to a third term. Yong had been linked to a group supporting Jagdeo’s re-election to another term. In an interview with Stabroek News he distanced himself from the effort but gave a ringing endorsement to Jagdeo.
The businessman said then that Jagdeo was the best President Guyana has ever had, “period”. Yong added that he supported President Jagdeo “one hundred and fifty percent” and that he had been impressed with the level of work he had done since taking office.
That same October, Persaud’s father, former PPP executive Reepu Daman Persaud had called for a third term for Jagdeo at the annual Diwali motorcade. A call that the PPP distanced itself from.
It is still unclear how it was that these two businessmen came to obtain their licence ahead of others and the criteria utilised.
What is cable TV?
According to Britannica. com, cable television is defined as any system that distributes television signals by means of coaxial or fibre-optic cables. It said that the term also includes systems that distribute signals solely via satellite. According to the website, cable-television systems originated in the United States in the late 1940s and were designed to improve reception of commercial network broadcasts in remote and hilly areas.
The website noted that some of these systems can deliver 50 or more channels because they distribute signals occurring within the normal television broadcast band as well as non-broadcast frequencies. A frequency-conversion device is connected to the television set of the subscriber to accommodate these signals of non-broadcast frequencies. The increased number of channels allows expanded programming, including broadcasts from distant cities, continuous weather and stock-market reports, programmes produced by community groups and educational institutions, “and access to pay-TV programme materials such as recent motion pictures and sports events not telecast by other broadcasters.”
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo in meetings with cable operators in 2007 and in 2010 had admonished them about unauthorised operations. The next major development was when the Government revealed recently that Yong and Persaud received their licence to commence operating in December 2010.
In his response to Alliance For Change Member of Parliament Cathy Hughes on the allocation of radio and television frequencies, Prime Minister Sam Hinds revealed last month that E-Networks and Quark Communications Inc. both received licences to operate cable services in December of 2010. The two companies, headed by Vishok Persaud and Brian Yong respectively, were given permission to operate on 2.5 GHz band frequencies. Another operator, Ali’s Broadcasting of Tain, Berbice, also received a 2.5 GHz band in 1997.
According to Wimax.com, the 2.5 GHz range is among the most sought after spectrum since it is very effective for the delivery of point to multi point signal to many users. The site said the 2.5 GHz spectrum range supports robust bandwidth capability.
Hinds said that all other cable operators received their licences at an earlier date. He said that Linden Cable Network received its permission in 2007, as had Infinity Telecommunications Inc in Linden, Linden Cable Network, Bartica Communi-cations Network, Carib Atlantic Cable Network in Mahaicony and E3 Communications in Corriverton. Atlantic Cable Network first received permission in 2001 to broadcast to a limited area only, comprising four communities on the East Bank of Demerara. However this was expanded to several other nearby communities in 2007.
Speaking to Stabroek News, Hinds explained why it was that the Government allowed the companies to operate outside of regulations.
“We were in a start-up situation…we are still to get the new Telecommunications legislation which will address this,” he said.
“There is a lot of convergence happening [in the sector]. In a start-up situation you have to see what happens before. At the beginning you have to not do things too early and see how things might be,” he explained.
While Yong could not be contacted by Stabroek News, in an article in the Guyana Times of March 19, 2013, captioned ‘Brian Yong slams KN for malicious article,’ Yong said that he obtained permission to operate cable and that his company was the first to bring Broadband via satellite to the Guyanese people. He said that together with E-Networks, there has been a reduced cost for internet services and cable television. “In 2001, Yong started Broadband Wireless, which continues to provide high speed Internet services in Guyana. He said this is the means by which he was granted permission and given the opportunity to expand his business, taking it to places where these services have never been provided before,” the Guyana Times article said.
Both the companies of Yong and Persaud are capable of providing cable television, telephone and broadband internet all at once.
According to Yong, he had also applied for a radio licence since 1999 and has not heard anything since from the authorities.
Speaking to Stabroek News, television broadcasting pioneer Anthony Vieira explained the travails he went through in trying to bring cable to Guyana.
He said that he wanted to bring Flow from Trinidad and Tobago but he was not allowed to do so. He said too that he had a plan to ensure that the city of Georgetown benefitted from the proceeds of the venture. He charged that the current operators do not have to pay anything.
Vieira also said that persons who started cable networking in Guyana were doing so with “absolutely no regulation.” However, he said that because of its nature, Cable television usually is outside of the control of the authorities.
Vieira noted that former President Jagdeo had called in operators to say that Government would be regularising them. “Jagdeo then gave Yong and Persaud the go ahead and told every other cable provider to stop expanding,” said Vieira.
He said that the former President gave the two men the same frequency and hence they show almost the same things, being limited to a total of about 60 channels each.
He said that this was at the same time that the former President called in all of the operators to a meeting at the Guyana International Conference Centre. He said that the former President did not invite him to this meeting.
Vieira said that he had signed an agreement with the City to turn over 4 percent of the earnings for the proposed cable operation. He said that he doubted the cable operators in the City today are contributing to the city.
Vieira made the observation that manufacturers of cable equipment make their equipment to the specifications of the cable allocated to E-Networks and Broadband Wireless, meaning that the other providers would be hard pressed to find the equipment that they need.
He is of the opinion that the Telecoms Bill will benefit the two main cable providers of the country because it frees up the sector.
Speaking to this newspaper, broadcast veteran Kit Nascimento said that there should be specific criteria set out for the issuing of cable licences and that there should be hearings prior to the issuing of licences. He said that the cable operators would have been operating illegally and noted that the law which should have been governing their operations was the Wireless and Telegraphy Act.
In June 2007, the Office of the President served notices of closure on Infinity Telecommunications Inc. (ITI) and Linden Cable Network (LCN), two operators in Linden, Bartica Communication Network (BCN), and another operator in Berbice.
The Office of the President also served notice on Atlantic Cable Network (ACN), based at Bagotstown, East Bank Demerara, demanding that it cease expanding its network and for the company to limit its operation to two villages along the East Bank of Demerara.
Back then, Prime Minister Hinds said that this decision was in keeping with the freeze on licensing in the broadcast industry pending the enactment of appropriate legislation.
