Guyana urged to increase landline rates
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, (CMC) — The Government here is being urged to grant a request for an increase in landline rates ahead of the planned liberalisation of the telecommunications sector.
The plea was made by Justin Nedd, chief executive officer of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT), as he spoke at a media reception on Friday.
“One of the things that is extremely important to us is being able to work with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to ensure that we get landline rates before liberalisation,” he said.
Landline rates have not been increased since 2012, and in 2015 after the PUC had formally rejected an application for rate increases, GTT moved to the Court of Appeal.
According to the director of rate making at GTT, Gene Evelyn, it is important for the PUC to approve the rate hike before Digicel lowers its rates significantly.
“When you liberalise and you bring in competitors, you don’t even have to bring in. If you liberalise tomorrow Digicel will push that rate down because they will try to hog the traffic and the ‘man’ will send the traffic to the ‘man’ with the lowest rate, and when it hit Digi here, Digi will then distribute, so this hearing here is so important that I don’t even think the Guyanese public understands,” he said.
Evelyn warned that the company could return to court if a rate increase is not granted, adding that the GTT has suffered a significant decline in revenues from settlement rates with other carriers like AT&T and MCI in the United States, because more people are using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services and applications such as WhatsApp.
He said the required landline rates being requested are lower than those being paid for cellular calls and, if granted, would help GTT to break even or make a slight profit.
Last year the Government passed modern telecommunications legislation and amendments to the PUC Act to pave the way for liberalisation.
Nedd described talks with the relevant government stakeholders as “meaningful and sustainable”, saying there is a “sense of urgency and forthrightness” and that “dialogue with government agencies is very productive”.