Dear Editor,
Over the past six months the quality of the GTT telephone and internet service has been very poor in the entire Berbice area. I have made several reports via GTT customer service about the quality of the internet service. Technicians would show up, do some work on the line and for a few days the internet will be fine. As a Gold Plan customer, most of the time I have less than four megabytes instead of ten megabytes. Whenever I do a GTT internet speed test my results are always below four megabytes. To confirm that the GTT internet is not working I went to my brother’s residence and did a speed test there; the results were very poor compared to the plan he is paying for. To prove my suspicion that GTT cannot provide quality internet service to Berbicians, I did more speed tests at a few other friends’ residences. I have confirmed that this issue exists in the New Amsterdam and West Coast Berbice areas, but persons do complain from other parts of Berbice. I am seeking the intervention of the Public Utilities Commission and that of the Minster responsible for Telecoms’ Berbice customers are paying for a service that they do not receive from GTT. In my view, I consider this the blatant defrauding of customers, since you are not getting the GTT service you are paying for.
The time has come for utility operators to provide quality service, and GTT is not honest about their service with customers and are very unprofessional by not saying to customers publicly that they are having difficulties meeting a quality internet service. Yet these providers advertise publicly to the citizens of Guyana.
Operators are so bent on making money that quality of service has taken second place. The old GTC used to have persons on the road servicing junction boxes, cables and pumping water out from these locations. I can’t say when last any field technicians were seen in the Berbice region doing maintenance on a regular basis at these boxes or line poles. What is the switch and licence capacity of GTT? When last did GTT do a drive-by test? How regularly does GTT undertake survey and quality assurance tests in areas outside Georgetown?
The government should hire an independent telecoms professional company to do an audit on both telecom operators in Guyana, and not depend on their reports on issues affecting customers. Since both companies are fighting for the same customer base which is very small, there are a lot of issues they try to fix in house, instead of contacting the switch and licence providers for technical help. In most cases these in-house patches only work for a brief time and sometimes create more issues.
As a customer, I am looking forward to Berbicians having quality service within the next month from GTT. If they do not resolve the quality of service in the Berbice area, I call on all Berbicians to boycott GTT until they can provide a proper service.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
