Govt. silent on telecoms liberalisation as 4,000 sign petition

Jan 29, 2020 News

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Over 4,000 persons have signed a petition calling for Government to get serious and formally announce the liberalisation of the Telecoms Sector.
Since being announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed last year, there has been little word on when the liberalisation would actually happen.

Yesterday, Digicel, the main competitor to GTT, joined the growing calls.
“The people of Guyana are tired of poor, unreliable broadband services and remote communities not being able to realise the dream of modern communications in their homes and are fed up of limited choice and not having the benefits of true competition,” Digicel said in a statement yesterday.
The Irish-owned company explained that those were the conclusions of a Change.org petition calling for the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in Guyana which has been gaining a lot of attention online, boasting over 4,000 signatures to date.
The petition will be sent to all political parties contesting the elections by February 8th.
Not only is the #LiberalisationNOW Change.org petition racking up new signatures daily, the accompanying campaign video on YouTube has gained over 52,000 views and the campaign Facebook page has 2086 followers with campaign posts having a reach of 654,990 since the start of campaign.
“Likewise, there are 16,725 engagements on the Facebook page with people actively commenting and sharing posts to show their support for breaking the monopoly and liberalising the telecom industry,” Digicel said.

According to Digicel, the change that the people of Guyana are demanding is long overdue. After three decades locked into a telecom monopoly, Guyanese suffer from a poor choice of services, the mobile phone company said.
It has signaled intentions to bring a submarine fibre optic cable to Guyana once the sector has been opened to allow other players.
Blocked
“Meanwhile, other operators are being held back from offering the better services they are ready and willing to provide. Poor broadband coverage — a shameful 90% of Guyanese still have no access to broadband services at home. Poor quality of services – even when they do have access to services, speeds are slow and unreliable.”
Digicel said that from indications, there is poor response time from GTT- any issues are resolved at a snail’s pace.
“These factors have combined to give Guyana the worst service in the Caribbean. With the legislation ending the telephone monopoly passed over three years ago by Parliament in July 2016 and assented to by the President, today there is still no progress since the legislation has not been made law.
“This requires the issuance of a commencement order by the Minister. With Guyana stuck in the telecoms dark ages, liberalisation must happen immediately to give Guyana the internet it deserves.”
Digicel argued that the stakes could not be higher.
“Bringing Guyana’s communications into the 21st century won’t just improve lives; it’s essential to developing the economy – especially now that oil production has begun with the first million barrels recently sold. As things stand, Guyana’s communication services are nowhere near ready to take full advantage of this development.”
However, Digicel said, the country is a long way from achieving the universal landline coverage it was promised when the monopoly went into effect almost three decades ago.
“With a commitment to have telephone service in the home of every Guyanese, today fewer than120,000 subscribers have been provided with what is at best a mediocre service.
If landline service has long been underwhelming, Guyana’s broadband service is even worse. Fibre optic service can be found in limited pockets in Georgetown and some surrounding communities, while DSL has slowly crept across the country on poorly maintained copper networks. It’s simply not good enough.”
Petition welcomed
According to Gregory Dean, CEO of Digicel Guyana, it welcomed the petition.
“The response to the petition clearly shows that Guyanese are sick of being left behind and missing out on the opportunities that come with a digital economy. Guyanese are calling on all our leaders to take the necessary steps to eliminate the monopoly immediately and liberalise our telecommunications market so that other companies can roll out the services that Guyanese have waited far too long for.
“I encourage everyone to get on board with this movement by signing the petition before February 8 and show that the will of the people cannot be denied.”
In March last year, the Coalition Government and the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) announced that they had inked an agreement. While the Memorandum of Understanding is non-binding, it was promised to be a significant advancement in the ongoing negotiations.
GTT, a US-controlled company that has been here for 29 years, taking over the crumbling state-owned Guyana Telecommunication Corporation in the early 1990s, has been insisting on a number of concessions, including more spectrum, and reportedly tax breaks, to give up its monopoly on landline and international calls.
Several companies have been applying to operate internet TV, mobile services, and the landing of submarine cables to bring data. However, the ongoing talks have stalled the processing of the applications.
A joint statement was issued by Government and GTT.
“The Cooperative Republic of Guyana (GoG) and Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) are pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the GoG’s planned liberalisation of the telecommunications market.”
The statement noted that the agreement, while “non-binding”, represents a major step toward fully liberalising Guyana’s telecommunications market.
“The parties have further agreed to continue discussions on all outstanding issues with the objective of reaching a binding agreement,” the statement had said.
Minister of Public Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes, had stated in March that, “after many years of delays, this Government has brought the country one step closer to achieving a fully open telecommunications market.
“While more work needs to be done, the Government is committed to continuing discussions and completing the process of liberalization for the citizens of Guyana.”
However, consecutive governments have been under pressure to allow new players for the expansion of services to especially outlying areas, which have been struggling for landlines and faster, affordable internet connectivity.
Since coming into Government in 2015, the issue was high on the agenda of the Coalition to end the 28-year landline and international calls monopoly held by GTT.
It entailed talks between the Government and the company about taxes, concessions and other issues.
Currently, only Irish-owned Digicel is here, and it is limited to mobile services.
Government had committed to opening up the sector in mid-2018, but it was delayed to the end of that year and then onto 2019.
E-Networks is now landing a submarine cable for what it says is its own cable television services.
In the meantime, there has been little word from the Coalition Government why there is no announcement of a formal liberalisation process as yet.

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