Latest update April 18th, 2025 8:12 AM
Digicel injects over US$70M into local market
…plans to improve service in 2013
Since its introduction to Guyana in May 2006, Digicel has plugged more than US$70 million into the local telecommunication market. However, there is more spending on the horizon, as according to Chief Executive Officer, Gregory Dean, Digicel has even more plans to improve the mobile service it offers to its customers.
Digicel’s CEO, Mr Gregory Dean
At Digicel’s end-of-year press conference last week Thursday, at its Fort and Barrack Streets, Kingston, Georgetown headquarters, Dean reflected on a number of network sites that were launched, among them one at Omai, even as he related that the company is currently working to set up another site this month at La Parfaite Harmonie.
He said that the mobile company has been closely gauging the new and upcoming residential areas with a view to providing extra coverage. “We have already looked at areas like Eccles and some of the areas on the East Bank. We are working on High Hill which is another out of town area that will give service mainly to Micobie and Tumatumari…” he added.
It is the CEO’s expectation that the High Hill set-up will allow for persons traversing into Mahdia to have mobile service access. “Once you get to 58 Miles and beyond you should be able to have service all the way from there right into Mahdia…There might be some areas on the trail where there might be spots where you lose service but pretty much we are expecting to have service right through into Mahdia in January,” Dean said.
The CEO said that there were a significant amount of network upgrades during the course of this year and there are even more plans to do further upgrades before Christmas.
An attempt by the company to complete a series of upgrades before the Christmas season kicked in had in fact resulted in Digicel customers suffering a bit in terms of service, Dean disclosed.
He commended the company’s clientele for having tolerated the inconvenience since according to him it is only a means toward improvement. “Once we get to the Christmas period we normally go into a network freeze…we would like to thank our customers for being patient with us…” said Dean.
Digicel, he explained, is further expanding its reach by opening new stores at areas including: Grove, Kwakwani and Mabaruma. However, work in this regard will not continue for the rest of this year but come January through March works will resume to upgrade existing stores, he said.
In the interim though, Digicel has been working diligently to introduce new handsets, such as the Samsung Galaxy, to its customers, a move which according to Dean has been gaining favourable responses from customers.
Despite to improve it services, Dean said that Digicel is still looking forward to the liberalisation of the sector. According to him “as an investor what you want is certainty in terms of where your business is going day to day and currently there is no clear idea of where the telecommunication sector is going.”
At the moment Dean is confident that Digicel is able to meet the international market. “We believe we can compete in the international sector and offer international rates cheaper.”
“I think we did have a period in July when we felt that it (the market) was opened and we were able to do that in quite a short time…so we don’t see it any differently in terms of a fully liberalised market,” Dean related.
He said that since Digicel entered the market domestic rates have decreased by over 50 per cent and “I think that both operators of the market are still able to exist in the market with those rates.”
Dean is convinced that the local telecommunication market can allow operators to exist while at the same time give customers greater benefits for their dollars.
“We don’t have this idea that if you liberalise and have an open competitive sector it would be an end of the world for operators or consumers…We believe that there is a happy medium where all stakeholders can benefit.”
Guyana, according to Dean, should be exposed to even more technology even as he noted that most of the other markets have 4G services as well as cheap access to internet. “For us Guyana still has some ways to go in terms of catching up with some of the other Caricom markets and that is one of the reasons why we believe liberalisation is critical.”
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