Works underway on new international submarine cable

May 13, 2009 News

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Chief Financial Officer of Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company (GT&T), Yog Mahadeo, says that preparations are ongoing for the landing of a new international submarine cable to Guyana.
According to him, since the signing of the contract to commence project, which was done in Suriname last December, the marine survey has commenced, as a study of the seabed and other similar studies need to be conducted to determine where the cable will be laid.
Mahadeo added that the contractor has been in discussion with the local authorities, both in Guyana and Suriname, to ascertain how the cable will be landed.
At the same time, he noted, the manufacture of the physical cable has commenced and as soon as all these studies are done, then the physical laying of the cable will start.
“We have been looking at first quarter 2010, by which time the project should be finished, and let us say by mid-2010 we should have that flow available; so a lot is happening,” Mahadeo stated.
According to Mahadeo, the vision is to have affordable bandwidth in some 30,000 homes within the next two years.

He said that several sectors of the economy could benefit from this new addition, among them the business and education sectors.
With the cable, Mahadeo said, businesses can be interconnected. “Data will be available where businesses can take off by being interconnected…because the bandwidth will be available security will take a different form.”
He noted that a camera set up at a business place could be monitored live from miles away.
Video conferencing will also be possible, Mahadeo added.
“All of these things that are now not possible will be possible then because we will have adequate bandwidth. So there is lots of business potential; there will be lots of demands for computers, there will be lots of demands for bandwidth generally.”
He also said that the banking industry as well as the government would benefit from the new cable.
“Take GRA. Wherever they need interconnectivity there will be the necessary bandwidth…Currently our constraint is that satellite bandwidth is not cheap and we have to buy a lot of satellite bandwidth. With the new cable that cost will go down so we will pass that savings on to the consumers and their cost of accessing the Internet will go down.”
Mahadeo also said that there would be a vast impact on education. The students will have available bandwidth so research and other areas will be done better; they will have information at the fingertips.
“Things can be interconnected…you have access to wherever, whatever you want all the time so that is what I’m so excited about, the vision of seeing within two years 30,000 homes. Thereafter the more exciting thing is that potential is absolutely limitless.”
He stressed that the cost will be equal if not less than whatever is the comparable cost worldwide.
GT&T’s annual report described the new cable as the most significant development of last year.
It states that the company spoke to numerous regional cable providers for close to two years about the potential of landing a new submarine cable directly in Guyana.
According to the report, after lengthy discussions and the work of many advisers from their parent company Atlantic Tele-Network (ATN), the Company concluded that none of these third party cables was likely to be funded or completed in the near future, or at all.
Accordingly, during the year, the Company, assisted by its advisers, examined the feasibility of the project (including the technologies available, the design, the challenges of crossing the vast Guyana delta area, the costs, and the availability of the necessary materials and specialized vessels), as well as and the benefits it would bring to the Company and Guyana.
Discussions were held with numerous stakeholders, including the Government of Guyana on this project. Each stakeholder agreed that the project would bring a tremendous boost to the continued development of the country.
After numerous meetings and lengthy negotiations with vendors and partners, the Company signed a joint agreement with TELESUR (Suriname) for the building of the Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System (SG-SCS).
The contract, valued at more than US$60 million was awarded to Global Marine Systems Ltd. of the United Kingdom utilizing materials and technologies and subcontractors from the U.S and China.
The 1,127-kilometer cable is designed to carry a throughput of multiple-gigawaves which will ultimately have the potential to increase current telecom bandwidth more than 3,000 times what is currently available.
The cable will ensure adequate capacity for all foreseeable requirements while providing fully redundant connectivity in and out of Guyana.
President Bharrat Jagdeo welcomed this development, saying that “the new cable will positively impact the growth and development of the telecommunication sector in Guyana and will consequently influence the expansion and development of our economic and social well being.”
The company is currently engaging with various stakeholders and partners in the selling this capacity toward the fulfillment of the “national dream” of connectivity for all institutions and homes in Guyana.

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