GT&T starts rollout of 10-times faster internet

Mar 31, 2015 News

Weeks after announcing plans to introduce faster internet for its customers, the Guyana Telephone and

GT&T’s CEO, Radha Krishna Sharma

Telegraph Company (GT&T) is on its way to making that promise a reality.
Teams of GT&T workers were at the G3 building, in New Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara, on Saturday taking applications for upgrades and queries for customers.
GT&T is reportedly preparing to unveil demonstrations as early as this week, officials say.
Already, several areas of the East Bank of Demerara have been upgraded, automatically receiving five times the speed for the same price.
These include on the East Bank of Demerara- Diamond and Golden Grove, Providence, Nandy Park and Houston. One the East Coast of Demerara, villagers of Paradise should have started to see faster speeds of up to five megabytes for the $10,000 plan. That $10,000 plan in the past had provided for one megabyte.
Georgetown is next up on the list.
The 10 megabytes plan is costing customers of Diamond and Golden Grove just under $15,000.
For the $10,000 plan, customers should be experiencing up to five megabytes.
In early February, Chief Executive Officer, Radha Krishna Sharma, announced to media workers that GT&T is swiftly moving to upgrade its systems that will see internet speeds increasing tenfold.
GT&T is hoping to have the upgrades completed before yearend at all communities that has telephone lines.
“The socio-economic benefits for a developing economy will be far reaching.

GT&T staffers taking applications for upgrades from customers on Saturday, in the parking lot of the G3 Building, New Diamond Housing Scheme, EBD.

And this is where I wish to make a commitment this evening to our customers that shortly we will be embarking in a phased manner to bring faster broadband speed and that too at a lower price to all ,” he had said in his announcement.
The news came at a time when GT&T’s nearest competitor, Digicel, is reportedly bringing in its own fiber optic cable. A number of other companies are standing by to enter the market but GT&T with its landline infrastructure will have the edge.
In 2010, GT&T commissioned a fibre optic cable in partnership with Suriname, investing US$30M. The cable has the capacity of servicing Guyana tenfold.
Sharma argued that the company, 80 percent of which is controlled by US’ Atlantic Tele Network (ATN), has been instrumental in the growth of a number of sectors.
Sharma had admitted that it will not be possible to take the enhanced speed to every area at the same time.
“While we cannot take this enhanced service to every community at the same time, before the end of the year, every qualifying community will be equally served. From a regional perspective, notwithstanding Guyana’s relatively low per capita income and small population, it is reasonable to expect that our consumer service aspirations will be comparable with those of their regional counterparts. Therefore, while recognizing that every investment must be driven by a viable business case, GT&T will still aim to provide services which are modern and sophisticated as the best regional provider.”
Among some of the features that GT&T is likely to showcase this week in its launch is the seamless streaming of videos from top-rated sites like YouTube and Netflix.
Customers have been complaining of slow speeds which affects download and streaming of videos.
The faster speeds should bring Guyana in line with the rest of the region in terms of cost and quality of service.