Misha Goodchild: `I use it on my phone, I use it on my laptop, at home and at work. My internet service provider is GTT. Right now the service sucks to be honest. When I’m at work, it’s faster. I get to complete my tasks, I get to go on Facebook. Right now at home though, I don’t know if maybe it’s because at work we pay for business internet while at home we just use the regular internet, but so far you can’t get videos to load, you can’t even browse Facebook, which is really annoying. And social media is my life. I use it to keep in touch with everything and I currently own a Facebook page that I use for business to sell stuff so it’s really difficult to promote my business at home. I’m on my phone almost all the time. Right now, I have on a data plan and my data plan is moving faster than our Wi-Fi at home, right now. Even the data plan sucks, it moves slow, but it’s the only alternative we have at the moment. This is my first time experiencing such a problem with GTT and I was reading in the newspaper that they have some kind of hardware malfunction and stuff like that so I don’t want to be too hard on them, you know. These things are understandable, but in terms of how you deal with it, making your customer aware of what’s happening, why it’s taking so long to fix and so on, I would say they really need to work on that a bit. So I would still give them an 8 out of a 10 because I like GTT.’
Joshua Griffith: `I have internet access at home. I don’t use the data plan on my phone because I don’t find it as a wise investment as I’m always near Wi-Fi and when I used to put it in my phone it wasn’t always reliable. I think the Wi-Fi works better than the data. My service provider was GTT— always is, always has been. The internet at home is fairly okay, it fluctuates with the weather. If the rain falls or if we have overcast conditions you could have infrequent service available. I find sometimes, I assume there are peak hours because sometimes it just moves slow for whatever reason, notwithstanding good weather— so I think also that’s the two times mostly that it’s not as reliable as you’d want it to be and I’m not sure what can be done but streaming movies is something that I use to test how fast it is and it works fairly okay with regards to that. I think in general if I were to scale the internet service out of 10, I’d say for reliability it’s somewhere about 6-7. I think it needs to be 9-10 locally but I know that takes some time, and when it comes to speed, I think we can also improve in that area too. I use the internet mostly for transacting business in the sense of my international portfolios; like I have a Commonwealth portfolio so I use it to have Skype calls and to send and receive emails. Ever so often, there were instances where calls have been cut or a signal is not clear so if I’m on an overseas call sometimes you have to reschedule or if I’m on a Skype call, sometimes you have to reschedule. Whenever I do watch movies—once a month or whatever—I use it to stream movies, but when I’m home I use it on my phone to Skype with my family overseas, WhatsApp calls and so on. So it’s basically for communication, for research also, minimally for leisure like Facebook and those things. If it’s not really some sort of business or some sort of work-related something I don’t really use the internet.’
Andrew Cumberbatch: `I’m using Digicel for my data provider, but at home I use GTT. I usually activate a monthly service so most of the time I’ll be on my phone. The internet is pretty good at work, but at home it’s kind of slow. When I was studying most of my time was spent on my desktop or my laptop, but now basically it’s just work so I’m on the go most of the time so I just use my phone.’
Don Singh: `Well I use GTT, I’m quite happy that they dropped their fees to $8,400 from—I think it was $10,000, but the internet service in Guyana is in general slow. I mean, they say 3g and 4g but it’s quite obvious when you travel to other countries and you get real 3g and 4g, you see the difference so right now the internet just sucks. You live with it because that’s what you have. I use it for browsing, Facebook, social media, the regular stuff. I use it on my phone 90% of the time, even when I’m at home.’
Anije Lambert: ‘It’s the same provider, GTT across the board. Even if large companies get from Digicel, Digicel is buying from GTT and they’re just having a private line. I’m not happy with the service they’re providing currently. I was having an international conversation on market research here in Guyana and the internet was horrible. How am I going to promote the country and the internet is horrible? It’s a challenge a lot of businesses and business owners are facing, even at home. I use DSL more than mobile data, however, when I’m on field trips, I use mobile data more.’
Osdale Bedlow: `I don’t have access to the internet at home but I do on my phone. GT&T is my service provider. The service does go and come, sometimes you can’t really understand why it doesn’t work. Sometimes you put credit to buy data and when you do look, all the data gone just like that and sometimes it lasts the time it’s supposed to, but most of the time recently, it doesn’t last the time it should and I don’t even really download anything much, nor am I a heavy internet user. I use it mostly to keep in contact with friends and family abroad, mostly using WhatsApp and Facebook.’
Joanna Gefferie: `GTT is my internet service provider. Overall, I would probably rate the service a 6 because there are times when it does work good and it’s really fast, but most of the time they’re always giving you problems. Your data finishes fast even though you’re not using any apps that would drain your data, all that stuff goes wrong, and then when you try calling them, they give you the run-around. I use it for research, Instagram, Youtube mostly. Most of the time I have difficulties streaming. Mostly I use it on my phone because for some reason the Wi-Fi doesn’t work on my laptop. They came and they looked at it and it still doesn’t work and the problem is not with my laptop because my laptop works with other people’s Wi-Fi. Almost every day the internet affects my ability to do work. Every time I go to do my assignment, if I don’t put on my data plan to help me with my internet you don’t get proper internet access, or you get it a little and then it cuts off and then you have to wait until 8pm or past that to get internet again. I’m a very dissatisfied customer.’
Vrinda Ramdeholl: `GTT is my service provider, both at home and on my cellphone, although I don’t usually activate data plans. I do use the internet most times on my phone though. I mostly use it for school work and social media. At home, I’d rate the internet a 7 out of 10, because it’s alright on most days, but other times it’s horrible. Sometimes it’s on, I see the router light blinking but I get no internet. It happens at least once a month.’
Joseph Allen: `I use the internet to basically get information for various topics, for school, for work, on interesting people, and for entertainment. My service provider is Atlantic Cable, a company in Alberttown. On my phone it’s Digicel. Digicel is less worse but Atlantic cable is worse.’
Randy Ault: `I do have…GTT broadband and mobile data. Lol the service is good enough…90% of the times I get to stream without buffering. Lol which is not bad since I have the cheapest one. I use it for business and work, teach, research and communication…and for relaxing…lol basically for everything. I don’t have a TV either since I get all my news and watch all my shows/movies online. I’ll say DSL more…I use that at home and at work. I use data only when I’m not at those 2 places.’
