Dear Editor,
Early on the morning of April 11, 2015 I awoke to discover that I had no landline and internet service to my home. Immediately I made a report to GT&T and was given a reference number. Numerous follow-up calls to GT&T were done by myself and wife over the ensuing days. GT&T offered us no explanations as to the cause of the disruption in service, other than that they were making all attempts to fix “the problem.”
It took my asking several persons in the surrounding areas before I realized that this was a widespread problem affecting scores of people, and was due to vandalisation of GT&T’s cables. My internet and landline service resumed for a period of three days from the 22-24 of April, 2015.
Once again, I awoke early Saturday morning of the 25 April, to the reality that there were no landline and internet services to my home. Another report was immediately made, and the reference number is 1687642. Since then, despite numerous calls to GT&T, inclusive of calls to supervisors at telephone number 225-1315, extension 2224, as of the time of writing (May 25), I am still without service. As before, it was our own inquiries from persons we encountered in the surrounding areas that informed us that another piece of GT&T’s cable was stolen. Upon asking during one of our many follow-up calls to the supervisors at GT&T, this was confirmed.
As a public health professional, public figure, and family man these disruptions in service have severely affected my ability to communicate both locally and internationally with my peers, clients, students, and extended family. The impact on my research projects is just as negative and severe. Beforehand I always held the opinion that GT&T was the better of many public institutions and/or service providers; needless to say, this perspective of mine is undergoing serious recalibration at the moment. In this modem era, utility companies must be prepared to quickly deal with contingencies such as cable theft, no matter how prevalent or otherwise. They must understand that we, their paying customers, are not enjoying some sort of “privilege.” In my case, equal to my always prompt payments to GT&T, I demand and have legitimate expectations of a very high quality and constant service with minimal interruptions (if any).
Or is it that GT&T has abandoned its hundreds of customers in in the Melanie/Enterprise/Bachelors Adventure area so affected by this loss of service? If so, GT&T must clearly and publicly say so. The new government must urgently pass the new telecommunications bill that liberates the sector so that citizens have options when service providers are found wanting. Guyanese must demand high quality service from all service providers, second and last class treatment is wholly unacceptable.
Yours faithfully,
B O Osogbo
