Guyana Telephone and Telegraph’s (GTT’s) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Damian Blackburn says thousands of pending landline applications have been reduced to just over 100.
Blackburn made the disclosure during the launch of the company’s, ‘Tis the Season to DRIVE’ Christmas promotion on Thursday night.
“When I took over we had a backlog of thousands of applications pending. I am pleased to announce tonight that as of this morning it has reduced to 108,” he said.
He credited the company’s engineering team for the huge reduction of pending landline applications. According to the CEO, the engineers and technical staff worked beyond the call of duty to ensure the applications were processed and customers connected.
“They did it all through COVID-19, the weather conditions. They took on a challenge [resulting] in no more backlog for landline services. That is an amazing accomplishment for this year,” a clearly pleased Blackburn said.
Touching on the company’s rollout of its Fibre internet service, the CEO said that over 105,000 households are now connected to the Fibre network.
It is the aim of the company to ensure that Fibre connectivity is available to all customers by 2024. The company is targeting 75% connectivity next year.
To date, over 55% of customers from broadband services have switched to the Fibre network.
“This is a massive, massive investment that we are making because we believe the Guyanese customer deserves the best… this is the same quality of fibre the US is getting,” Blackburn said as he emphasised that they are working diligently to improve the quality of service.
He added that within the past year they have upgraded the entire mobile data network to LTE (Long-Term Evolution), giving customers the benefit of stable and faster data connection.
Turning his attention to customer complaints, the CEO said that they have seen a reduction in these. He noted that from the time he took office, it was a policy that they respond to every letter to the editor in newspapers and social media complaints.
This policy, he stated has been positive for the company’s customer relations with issues being remedied in a timely manner.
Blackburn, who came to the phone company from The Bahamas, was appointed the new CEO of GTT, effective from April 2021. He is said to have over two decades of experience leading major mobile, internet and TV operations and technology start-ups in competitive Caribbean, Americas and European markets. He replaced Justin Nedd.
The new CEO has assured that plans are in place to improve the services offered by the company.
