Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company

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The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company is a fixed Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) based in Guyana, South America. It is the largest provider of telecommunication services in Guyana with a subscriber base exceeding three hundred thousand in a country with an average population of seven hundred thousand. [1] Its parent company is the Atlantic Tele-Network where former AT&T Vice President Steven Parrish is Vice President of Operations.

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[edit] History

As part of its economic reform program, the Government of Guyana chose to privitize telecommunications toward the end of the 1980s. In 1990 the Atlantic Tele-Network bought 80% of Guyana's telecommunications infrastructure from the government; GT&T was opened January 28, 1991. By September 2004, more than $195 million was invested to update and expand the infrastructure throughout Guyana.[2]

[edit] Services

GT&T provides local, long distance and international voice services; they also offer prepaid cards for use with land lines. International voice traffic is carried for GT&T by Verizon; international collect calling is provided through agreements with AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Call Home Telecom, Bell Canada, Telus and British Telecom. The Earth Station in Thomas Lands, Georgetown receives and relays international voice and data traffic.

GT&T provides wireless TDMA and GSM services under the names Cellink and Cellink Plus; a prepaid service is also available with the 'Freedom Phone' and its prepaid cards. Their data provision is through the GT&T Frame Relay Network, hosted with Nortel Solutions. DSL service is available for business and residential customers through their Guyana Online (GOL) service; internet traffic for GT&T is handled by UUNET Technologies.

GT&T also publishes the Guyana Telephone Directory.

[edit] Structure

Many of the main offices are located in Georgetown, Guyana. The Corporate Headquarters campus is divided into the Telephone House which holds the commercial headquarters of the company as well as customer service call centers and the operator service center. The Executive Suite, which has its own entrance, parking and security houses the office space of key employees and executives. The Human Resources offices have a separate building. The Residential Service Unit, houses the residential and government services offices and the collections office. The Central Telegraph Office houses telegram and telegraph services, accounting and finance departments and the office of the Director of Customer Services. The Technical Headquarters in the Thomas Lands area also houses the International Earth Station.

The East Coast Office is located in Beteverwagting, Demerara. In addition to the Regional Manager, is also houses the domestic satellite station. Other commercial offices are located in Retrieve, Linden and New Amsterdam, Berbice.

GT&T also owns a web enabled outsourcing call center to Latin America and the Caribbean, Atlantic Tele-Center, Inc., based just outside Georgetown, Guyana.

[edit] Corporate Governance

The Board of Directors is chaired by Cornelius B Prior. Its other members are Sonita Jagan (Former CEO) and Joseph Singh (Current CEO). Rex McKay acts as General Counsel.

[edit] Competitors

GT&T's main competitors are CelStar Guyana Inc / U-Mobile, a subsidiary of California based Trans-World Telcom and Trans-World Telecom Caribbean, headquartered in Grand Cayman.[3]

In the local mobile market, they compete with European-based Digicel, headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ CIA (10 January, 2006). Guyana. The World Factbook. Retrieved on 2006-03-27.
  2. ^ GT&T (26 September, 2004). About GT&T (pdf). Retrieved on 2006-03-27.
  3. ^ Trans-World Telcom Caribbean. Retrieved on 2006-03-27.
  4. ^ Digicel. Retrieved on 2006-03-27.

[edit] External links