The ongoing programme by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) to provide remote rural communities with radio telephone services is creating a significant transformation in the lives of residents of those communities, according to Allison Parker, the Company’s Public Relations Officer.
Speaking with Stabroek Business earlier this week Parker said that the company had already completed the installation of ninety four rural remote radio telephone services in several parts of the country including areas of the North West District, Ituni, Linden, the Berbice River, the East Bank and Timehri. The terrain in many of these communities does not allow telephone access through the conventional wire phone system.
Parker explained that many of these installations have been undertaken in small remote communities where, hitherto, the absence of telephone communication had placed limitations on social and economic life in those communities.
She explained that apart from the social transformation in the communities resulting from telephone access the ability to communicate quickly and over long distances had enhanced economic life and created new business opportunities for residents of those communities. “Frankly, apart from the fulfilment of our build-out obligation, GT&T has derived a tremendous amount of satisfaction from the knowledge that the remote rural radio telephone service is transforming people’s lives in a positive way,” Parker said.
The GT&T Public Relations Officer who said that she had been to Lesbeholden, Black Bush where a new remote radio telephone facility had recently been installed told Stabroek Business that the response of residents to the arrival of the new telephone service suggested that there was a definite awareness of the role that GT&T was playing in enhancing the quality of life by providing telephone facilities.
The remote rural radio telephone service is provided to communities through shared facilities strategically positioned in telephone kiosks. Calls are made through the use of phone cards.
Meanwhile, Parker told Stabroek Business that GT&T will begin work early next month to replace the existing Fixed Wireless Antenna (FWA) telephone system that has been serving Essequibo with a new Local Wireless Loop (LWL) system which she said will enhance the quality of service in the region.
Parker said that over time the FWA system had become affected by electricity-related problems and that spares had become difficult to acquire since the company that had been contracted to install the system was no longer in business.
According to Parker the new Local Wireless Loop system which, unlike its predecessor, will support both voice and data communication will immediately benefit more than 3000 Essequibo residents.
Parker said that a team of GT&T officials including Customer Relations Director Pam Briggs will be visiting Essequibo next week to meet with community officials and residents to discuss the installation of the new service. According to Parker the removal and replacement of antennas and other infrastructure associated with the old system and the installation of the new system will be completed in a matter of weeks.
