GTT, Digicel attribute poor quality service to upgrade efforts

Apr 28, 2017 News

Over the past few weeks, Kaieteur News has been receiving complaints about poor quality service being experienced by customers of both Digicel and the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT).

GTT, Digicel attribute poor quality service to upgrade efforts.

Contacted by this newspaper, the two companies admitted that they were experiencing some technical glitches that have resulted in poor mobile data connection, and dropped calls.
According to Digicel, the interruptions to its services come as the result of “scheduled repairs to the undersea Americas II Cable, North of St. Croix.”
The company said that the repairs may affect DSL speeds from April 28 – April 29, starting at 10:00hrs.
Digicel’s Public Relations Officer, Vidya Sanichara said that efforts are being made to ensure that the repairs are done in a time effective manner.
“We sincerely apologise for these recent interruptions, and we are working to have the upgrades completed in the shortest possible time,” Sanichara said.
Similarly, GTT is also attributing its service interruptions to system upgrades as well. But this is mostly affecting landline services.
The company said that it is working to apply the latest generation of networking technologies and equipment to its broadband network, to provide faster speeds, more capacity and enhanced network reliability.
“GTT is partnering with General Data Tech (GDT), a leading systems integrator and tier 1 Cisco partner to upgrade systems and architecture to a level consistent with the best practices of leading global service providers around the world,” the company noted in a statement.
In addition to more efficient services, GTT noted that it will also be able to more effectively manage aggressive traffic growth scenarios for many years to come.
“GDT is an award-winning technology integration partner with expertise in the delivery of enterprise network, collaboration, mobility, and data centre technologies to service providers, large enterprises, and businesses of all sizes,” the statement read.
GTT’s broadband network provides access to the Internet for more than 50,000 customers.
“This system upgrade, coupled with GTT’s substantial undersea capacity, will facilitate a substantial improvement in broadband and data connectivity.”
The project for upgrading the network is expected to be completed by third quarter 2017. During this time, some customers may continue to experience intermittent outages.
The telephone company said too, that it “deeply regrets any inconvenience experienced and commits to making all efforts to minimize the outages during the business day and early evening.”
Meanwhile, officials of the Public Utilities Commission said that they have only received three complaints of poor service, against each of the two companies, as it relates to their mobile services.
“For this year, there haven’t been many complaints,” the PUC official emphasized.
However, it is the Ministry of Public Telecommunications that is being bombarded with criticisms against the two companies – Digicel and GTT.
According to the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Derrick Cummings, complaints are usually deferred to the individual companies, which would commit to solving the problems.
“The Ministry is constantly engaging both Digicel and GTT, in relation to better services.”

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