As telecoms liberalisation becomes a reality in Guyana, Digicel says it is making itself ready to take advantage of the opportunities, as it seeks to provide a new era of connectivity for the people in that country.

This as Guyana’s newly elected Government has started to remove the 31-year telecoms monopoly of Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T), which is expected to end in another two months.

In an announcement on Wednesday last, the telecoms company said they will be seeking to provide the people of Guyana with access to world class telecommunications services as they roll out new offerings to the market.

“To say that this day has been a long time coming is an understatement. For 16 long years, we have asked, requested, pushed, lobbied and pressured. Today, finally, that day is here. At Digicel, we firmly believe that access to broadband is a basic human right. Now, the people of Guyana can look forward to a brighter future with affordable access to world-class connectivity solutions that can catapult them to the forefront of the knowledge and digital economy,” said Gregory Dean, chief executive officer (CEO) of Digicel Guyana in commenting on the latest development.

“On behalf of my Digicel colleagues, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to

Prime Minister Mohammed Irfaan Ali and his administration for delivering on their promise to expeditiously liberalise the sector. We are stepping into our future with confidence and are getting ready to make the transformational benefits of high-speed connectivity a powerful reality for Guyanese. We look forward to a short administrative process to grant us the necessary permissions to make the desired expansions and upgrades of our services,” he said in the news release.

Digicel, in highlighting a McKinsey study, which showed that 10 per cent higher broadband penetration could deliver a gross domestic product (GDP) boost of up to 1.4 per cent in a country, said that Guyana was poised to gain significant benefits along with the fact that the country is expected to become the fastest growing economy following its recent oil discovery.

Following a national petition, which attracted thousands of signatures along with multiple social media campaigns demanding telecoms liberalisation earlier this year, Digicel, at the time, had said that the change being sought was long overdue. The company also said that the actions sent a strong signal, as people expressed dissatisfaction with being left behind whilst continuing to miss out on the opportunities that come with a digital economy.

“After three decades locked into a telecom monopoly, Guyanese suffer from a poor choice of services,” the mobile phone company was reported to have said then. The company had also signaled its intention to bring a submarine fibre optic cable to Guyana once the sector has been opened to allow other players.

“Meanwhile, other operators are being held back from offering the better services they are ready and willing to provide. A shameful 90 per cent of Guyanese still have no access to broadband services at home [and] even when they do have access to services — speeds are slow and unreliable.

“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,” a Kaieteur news report in January of this year said.

— Kellaray Miles