By Mark Ramotar
DIGICEL yesterday again called for an international licence to operate here, and announced it is ready to offer Guyanese an early Christmas with cheaper international calls and other good tidings.The firm also contended that it is unable at this time to deliver ‘true value’ for international calls since the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company Limited (GT&T) seems determined to hold on to its monopoly on international services rather than allowing market forces to prevail, as has happened in most of the world.
Recently appointed Chief Executive Officer of DIGICEL Guyana, Mr. Mark Linehan, told reporters that within an hour after getting the go-ahead, DIGICEL can start offering this service.

During a press tour of the DIGICEL Switch in Kingston, Georgetown, where more than US$20M in new, state-of-the-art telecommunications equipment is stationed, and its US$1.2M Earth Station on Mandela Avenue, Georgetown, Linehan pressed the case for an international licence for DIGICEL.

“The cost of international calls is held artificially high by GT&T to support the super abnormal profits they are making,” he asserted.

According to him, GT&T has made more than US$1 billion on international services since 1992, with 84 percent of this revenue coming from inbound international calls.

That makes the cost of doing business with Guyana significantly higher than doing business with most other countries in the region, Linehan contended.

Noting that there is a social cost as well, he said “the Guyanese Diaspora is also paying these astronomical rates to call home to relatives and friends”, while locals are paying “extraordinarily high rates to call overseas”.

In Guyana, for instance, Linehan said a customer currently pays “300 percent more” to make a call to the United Kingdom than in Jamaica.

The Guyana Chronicle could not reach GT&T top officials for comment yesterday.

Linehan also alleged that what GT&T pays at the wholesale level for international calls has been dramatically decreasing over the last decade “but not the prices that consumers are paying in Guyana”.

“We have invested in the network, we have trained the Guyanese engineers and support staff and we have proven that we can deliver international services. All we need is liberalization that moves forward quickly in order to bring the telecommunications sector in line with the competitive character of the rest of the economy,” Linehan declared.

He said “our readiness was tested twice in May when the Americas II cable was ruptured and Guyana was cut off from all international voice and data traffic.”

In those circumstances, DIGICEL pointed out that it was able to turn on its systems in less than one hour.

In June this year, President Bharrat Jagdeo said his government intended to re-engage GT&T in discussions on a range of issues, including ending the monopoly the company has on the telecommunication sector in Guyana.

He said issues such as management fee and outstanding taxes would have been discussed.

In March this year, both the government and GT&T publicly signalled a willingness to sit down and resolve their differences, especially on the legacy issues that have dogged the relationship.

Noting that the negotiations between GT&T and the government to end the monopoly were moving at a “snail’s pace”, Linehan yesterday declared that DIGICEL does not have any power to intervene in the negotiations and all it can do at this time is “lobby”.

“We are, I suppose, just a spectator since the agreement at the moment between the government and GT&T does not offer much scope to get involved,” Linehan told the Guyana Chronicle.

The press tour yesterday was aimed at demonstrating what DIGICEL has done since its acquisition of Cel Star/U-Mobile and the launch of DIGICEL.

DIGICEL has made substantial investments in the network infrastructure of U-Mobile which it acquired at the beginning of November 2006.

DIGICEL said it invested more than US$60 million to more than double the number of sites operated by U-Mobile – increasing the network coverage to 92% of the population, up from 67%.

Its expansion includes coverage at Charity on the Essequibo Coast allowing for seamless service on the costal corridor from the Corentyne to Charity; and the north-south corridors to provide seamless coverage to Bartica and Linden from the coast.

DIGICEL also has coverage as far south at Lethem and far north at Mabaruma.

“This coverage makes us decidedly the bigger, better network,” Linehan told reporters.

“In fact, based on the number of installed GSM sites, the DIGICEL network is 20% bigger than our competitor,” he posited.

PHOTO saved as Mark points in Digital

‘IMPRESSIVE’: DIGICEL Guyana CEO, Mr. Mark Linehan highlighting features of the state-of-the-art Voice Mail equipment at the DIGICEL ‘Switch’ headquarters in Kingston, Georgetown yesterday.