Dear Editor,

Recently it has come to my knowledge that Guyana is amongst a few of the world’s countries, which have banned VOIP. VOIP or Voice over Internet Protocol, also called telephony, is a very cheap way of long distance voice communicating. It is different from Instant Messaging, (IM). It is all done by the use of computers, and therefore communication can be very cheap or free, but unlike IMs the communicators do not have to have IMs, and can talk phone to phone also. This reduces greatly the revenues of monopolistic land line phone companies. In a few of the poorest countries of the world, governments have moved to ban this technology.

It is a very short-sighted thing for any government in a country like Guyana to do. VOIP is an example of scientific innovation at its best. It is not something that governments in small countries which hope to develop should try to stifle. It makes me remember the days of Forbes Burnham, who did not allow TV stations in Guyana for years. What nonsense that was. Guyana needs tremendous economic help. Not only in the form of Western Union transfers and barrels to individuals, but greater help in the form of flourishing business activity.

Quick, fast and cheap and reliable communications is a path to robust business activity.

India is no longer a developing economy, but a developed economy in big part because many Western businesses, especially many American businesses, find it cheap and easy to communicate from India. So they outsource to India for much of their communicating needs. It is made cheap and possible by VOIP.

VOIP has brought billions of dollars and millions of jobs to the Indian economy.

Over the past forty or so years, governments in Guyana have been showing a special talent for absurd decisions. The decision to ban VOIP seems to be the most absurd.

For the good of the Guyana economy, I want to implore the Guyana government to change this particular decision.

Yours faithfully,
Lennox Wellington