Intermittent phone service in North Rupununi for last four months

Dear Editor,

Since the launch of GTT’s cellphone service in the North Rupununi a couple of years ago, the quality of service has been far from perfect, but we the residents of Annai and surrounding villages were grateful because at least we could make immediate phone contact with Georgetown and Lethem and other places with access to cellphone service. However the old adage that there is a learning curve for everything and things get better with time, seems not to apply to GTT’s service in the North Rupununi by any stretch of the imagination. What has always been an average service has now deteriorated to downright poor.

Firstly GTT’s mobile data service has always been substandard. When you have to make numerous efforts and wait for an hour or more for a single webpage to load on your phone, you know you are getting the wrong end of the deal, especially when you are being charged exorbitant rates for the service. Then to make matters worse in November 2016 there was a complete network shutdown in the North Rupununi and subscribers were without a phone service for over a week with no prior warning from GTT. Many of us were left in the dark as to the cause, but rumour had it that the system was being upgraded. We were all hopeful of an improved service but when it was eventually restored, our hopes were dashed. Not only was the service even more unreliable but it was also intermittent with the phone signal being regularly disrupted. GTT eventually sent a message in January 2017 to subscribers that they were working on getting the service fixed. But I for one was amazed, flummoxed even, that a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars annually in profit was taking so long to rectify the problem, especially taking into consideration the enormous financial, technological and human resources that GTT has at its disposal.

So here we are at the end of February, and nearly four months have elapsed and the problem of disrupted and intermittent phone service still persists. I have been without a phone signal for the last fifteen hours and I can’t recall when last WhatsApp has worked properly or I have been able to read news online, and of course GTT has us in the dark as to what is going on. So much for us being considered “valued customers”!  Would we subscribers be so wantonly treated if there was another service provider in the North Rupununi? I strongly doubt it!

So I am imploring GTT to get its act together. And maybe the Telecommunica-tions Minister can also look into this issue, an issue that is causing the subscribers of the North Rupununi such inconvenience. GTT must remember that we are not begging for the service; we are paying for it with our hard earned money. A simple text message to subscribers to give us an update on the state of affairs would go a long way to quelling the rising tide of resentment, anger, and frustration that many of us feel at the moment.

Yours faithfully,

L Williams

Frustrated GT&T customer