Dear Editor,

GT&T needs to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ of competition. While GT&T and its employees have indeed contributed to Guyana’s development, their monopoly mode also has retarded Guyana’s development by imposing unnecessarily higher costs on Guyanese for telecommunication services, especially international ones.

In the global economy international communication is essential, and Guyanese entrepreneurs and society are put at a disadvantage in relation to their competitors when these costs are higher than they should be.

The PUC should continue to take the GT&T to task on this as government policy to correct the monopoly situation is moving very slowly, if at all.

One issue the PUC should examine is whether it is legal or justifiable for GT&T to deny or significantly impede the ability of Guyanese to use Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony services. This is just one example of where GT&T is abusing its monopoly power at the expense of Guyanese consumers and Guyana’s development.

Yours faithfully,
Fitzgerald Yaw