Dear Editor,
For more than ten years Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Co, Ltd (GT&T) has refused to install functioning landline phones on the island of Leguan. Many islanders are now frustrated over their phones which are non-functional. Islanders who applied for a telephone after 1999 are also frustrated. I applied for a phone in March 2004 and since then I only hear, ‘soon,’ ‘soon,’ ‘soon.’ Early this year I received information in one of the business centres of GT&T that a new system would be installed later this year. Now we are in October already, and nobody from GT&T has come to the island to install the new service. It seems that it is again an empty promise.
GT&T seems also to have another problem with the internet connection to Leguan. With a 3G-modem you get connected to the internet but at what price. The connection is slow ‒ slower than a sloth ‒ and you must pay for the service which you do not get. You cannot watch a video or listen to live streams from one of the many online radio stations, and you cannot do any research on the internet for your school and business in a short time. It is frustrating, not only for me but also for many students.
West Coast Demerara and East Bank Essequibo are only a few kilometres from Leguan. There you get a proper internet connection, but not in Leguan. Why?
To send this email took me more than an hour, because I couldn’t open my mail box. It seems that GT&T has no solution for Leguan.
Yours faithfully,
Hans Buer