The deal for a campus-wide Wi-Fi zone at UG must be openly reviewed

Jan 26, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
The announcement that telecoms giant, GT&T, is preparing to launch a campus-wide Wi-Fi zone at the University of Guyana (Turkeyen Campus) was made with great pomp and fanfare. On the surface of it, this latest endeavour joins a long list of timely initiatives made by the company to the resource-strapped university.
However, an objective and dispassionate analysis of the proposed fee structure [$100 per hour] and, overall formulation of the deal between UG and GT&T, ought to be conducted to determine whether or not students of the university are getting a fair deal.
Based on the limited information provided, several points of fact are cause for worry:
A) The University of Guyana administration was reportedly approached by GT&T to set up the infrastructure to provide fee-based Wi-Fi service.
The point of rumination is this: was GT&T automatically deemed to be the lone company capable of providing the said service?
If not, were other proposals invited from other wireless internet providers to assess whether the service to be provided by GT&T would be provided on the most competitive terms?
B) The cost structure, looked at on the basis of the limited information provided, is suspect. Is $100 per hour the most affordable price at which GT&T can offer this service to students?
Compare the $100 per hour service charge to the average cost per hour enjoyed by consumers hooked up to GT&T’s 1 Mb E-magine broadband service (which, at $10,000 a month, amounts to around $13 per hour). It is said that UG would be receiving 2 Mb of internet speed meaning that even at twice the speed, $100 still seems disproportionately high.
Understandably, GT&T is a private enterprise, and their over-arching mandate is not to provide internet as a public good (i.e., at the lowest cost possible to ensure widespread access to foster such externalities as research and further reading among students). Rather, GT&T are inherently profit-seekers.
We are not wont to begrudge them the profit incentive. However, there’s a fine line between profit-making and profiteering.
What is the level of capital and operating expenditures, and, therefore, what is the size of the profit margin being earned? These are questions that must be answered if consumers are to be assured that they’re being given a fair deal.
C) GT&T enjoys a monopoly on all fee-based internet services on campus: at both the Centre for Information Technology and Rabindranath Tagore Centre.
The same could be said for the private internet access provided to the faculty members. Are the reciprocal benefits which accrue to the university sufficient enough to justify the sustained maintenance of GT&T’s de-facto exclusive rights to provide internet access?
What’s in it for UG should they proceed with this latest deal with GT&T which will almost certainly increase the monopoly profits being earned by the company from their enterprise on campus?
D) Lastly, can’t a company of GT&T’s magnitude demonstrate a higher level of corporate social responsibility by providing high-quality, high-speed internet access free of cost? The local private sector is not without precedent when it comes to initiatives of tremendous social magnanimity. Bounty Farms Ltd. maintains a sluice in the Soesdkye environs while Guyana Seafood Ltd. maintains a pump on the East Coast. Mind you, inasmuch that GT&T has played a historic role in upgrading our telecoms infrastructure since the 1990s, it has, by virtue of a longstanding monopoly status in the provision of many crucial telephone services, reaped windfall proceeds in the process.
The University administration and GT&T need to demonstrate greater openness and transparency in order to assure students that their interests are being genuinely considered. As such, a technical panel, intellects for which can easily be found on campus, that will openly review this deal, needs to be convened.
Saieed I. Khalil
Alexander Defreitas
Sherod A. Duncan

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The deal for a campus-wide Wi-Fi zone at UG must be openly reviewed

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