GT&T commissions key CWC facility
By Mark Ramotar
Guyana Chronicle
March 22, 2007
AN ESSENTIAL and crucial component in Guyana’s preparation to effectively host Super Eight matches of Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 was completed yesterday with the commissioning of a US$1.7M mobile and land line facility at the National Stadium complex at Providence, East Bank Demerara.
The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company Ltd (GT&T) facility was commissioned by President Bharrat Jagdeo who lauded the telephone company for completing its part of the “complex array of different things” that had to be done for Guyana to host the matches.
“I want to thank GT&T for allowing us, in this complex array of preparations of different things that we had to do, to complete their part and complete it on time,” President Jagdeo said.
He also noted that the GT&T facility will play an important role in ensuring that the stadium at Providence becomes the most modern in the Caribbean in terms of its Information and Communication technology (ICT) capability and capacity.
He noted that the government has spent almost US$1.6M so far on ICT equipment and cables for the stadium, which will be integrated with the services that GT&T will be providing with the commissioning of its facility yesterday.
GT&T Chief Executive Officer, Major General (rtd) Joe Singh, in remarks at the ceremony, said “Today is a very special day in that with exactly one week to go before the first ball is bowled in the Super Eight matches being hosted at this beautiful stadium complex, we have our Head of State commissioning another essential component of the infrastructure - the telecommunications component.”
Singh said the telecommunications component comprised both GSM mobile and the land line facility “that have been turned up to ensure adequate coverage of the stadium and other facilities, such as the hotels and the communities within range of the radius of coverage of these facilities.”
With regards to the stadium requirements, he said although GT&T’s agreement with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) was to “provide the requirements to point of entry at the stadium’s communications room”, the company has had to work with LOC staff to find creative solutions to a multiplicity of challenges in configuring the internal systems to channel the services in accordance with CWC benchmarks.
“This is another example of partnerships in the national interest and I am happy to report that at this point of time, GT&T has installed and tested the 45 mbps Internet service, 4 E1s and 30 POTS trunks to be terminated at the Communications Room, and we are awaiting the delivery to the LOC of the modem for the 1024 kbps International Lease Line to link the stadium’s Local Area Network to the Cable & Wireless Wide Area Network,” Singh told the gathering.
He said GT&T has also installed and tested a redundancy microwave link between the Cheddi Jagan International Airport at Timehri and Georgetown and in addition, a separate redundancy microwave for all of the stadium’s IT requirements.
“Even as these assignments were being executed, we were working against the clock to complete the relocation of legacy cables from the old Ogle Airport to the brand new terminal building commissioned last Friday and in ensuring that there is an adequacy of voice and data services for the airlines operating out of Ogle, and for the control tower, Fire Service, regulatory and enforcement services co-located in the terminal building,” the CEO stated.
During last month, he said the telephone company also engineered a solution for the Guyana Police Force to ensure that the voice and data service requirements for border security controls, as defined in the CWC benchmarks, are in place at Moleson Creek, Lethem, CJIA and Immigration Offices in Georgetown.
Singh also took the opportunity to outline GT&T’s strategy, its commitment to national development priorities, its commitment to partnership, its integration with the National Information Technology (IT) strategy and the company’s continuing integration with the “national development thrust”.
GT&T has a deliberate build out strategy to provide as far as is achievable, seamless mobile service of a high quality and at competitive prices from Charity to Moleson Creek, from Georgetown to Linden, and at those locations where demographics and economics make it necessary for the company to integrate with the national development thrust, he said.
Accordingly, he said GT&T has been working to a plan which is declared annually to the Public Utilities Commission and is reflective of a needs assessment as well as consultations and representations at the regional, sectoral and community levels.
He said these plans, however, have to be flexible to allow for “a re-ordering of priorities if national interests are at stake”.
“We hope therefore that this is understood by the communities at Mahdia, Linden, Bartica and the Essequibo Coast where expectations of earlier improvements in coverage…have had to be adjusted to reflect a shift in priorities.”
Singh said this is not an excuse but a realistic appraisal of the company’s own performance.
“Sometimes one has to make hard decisions because we are not only in the business of running a cellular network but also landlines, a fast growing broadband DSL service and an expanding remote radio service for communities and businesses in isolated areas,” the GT&T boss asserted.
Singh also said that from the time the decision was made to invest in the stadium after Guyana’s bidding process was successful, GT&T “factored in the need to install IT facilities, as a matter of national priority, aware as we are of the stringent timelines and penalties”.
“We also knew that Guyana was scheduled to host the Rio Summit and that the hotels being established would require the anticipated voice and data services, consistent with international standards (and so) we initiated an action plan with the relevant authorities-the LOC, the hotels’ management, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to glean from them what were their IT requirements.”
In some cases, Singh said these were not made known to the company until late in the day.
Nevertheless, he said the staff at GT&T “worked tirelessly” to ensure that the requirements were met and even when the internal IT distribution requirements were in jeopardy because these were contracted out by the respective managements, its systems engineering, civil engineering, marketing and sales, customer services, technicians and outside plant engineering and construction personnel, and contractors, were requested to “work beyond the call of duty to ensure that Guyana lived up to, and where possible, exceeded expectations in its delivery of telecommunications services”.
According to him, such examples are evident not only at Buddy’s International Hotel, but at Le Meridien Pegasus, the Grand Coastal and Cara Lodge hotels, the Guyana International Convention Centre, the National Cultural Centre and the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
The commissioning ceremony was chaired by GT&T Deputy General Manager Mr. Terry Holder, while Mr. Phillip Allsopp, a member of the LOC, gave a background to the GT&T project, underscoring the critical importance of having such a facility at the stadium and outlined part of the initial trepidations and difficulties that Guyana was faced with before the country even got the matches.
Also at the ceremony were Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr. Frank Anthony; Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce Mr. Manniram Prashad; Indian High Commissioner to Guyana Mr. Avinash Gupta; President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mr. Gerry Gouveia; Chairman of the Private Sector Commission Mr. Michael Correia; officials from the LOC and staff of GT&T.