Digicel anticipates liberalization of telecoms market

Georgetown: Chief Executive Officer of Digicel Guyana, Greogory Dean Thursday afternoon said the company believes that all of the players in the telecommunications market should be subjected to all the same terms and conditions and no preference or priority should be given to any one party. 

According to Dean, Digicel has been involved in various consultative engagements over the three years; however, the legislations have changed in order to promote fair competition.

Government has initiated meetings with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) and Digicel Guyana. The two companies are currently the only two entities providing telephone services in Guyana.

Dean said the main hindrance is the monopoly which has restricted the company from making significant investment, such as going to a 3G or 4G network.  It was noted that Digicel has a 97 per cent coverage of the country’s population and has, to date, invested more than US$65M in Guyana since it took over U-Mobile in early 2007.

Dean said that although they were assurances that there will be liberalization, he is convinced that the key thing is to have a timetable since without a timetable the company will return to square one.