Project Manager of the E-Governance Unit, Alexei Ramotar
Project Manager of the E-Governance Unit, Alexei Ramotar said the laying of fibre-optic cable to improve Guyana’s telecommunications sector and ensure connectivity in the country should be completed by May/July of this year.
Ramotar said that the Chinese company, Huawei Technology Company Limited was chosen in 2009 to provide infrastructural support for the project, which is now in the first phase of cable being laid from Lethem to Georgetown.
The plan proposed by Huawei has since gone through several reviews and changes as necessary. One of the major issues when the administration decided to establish electronic governance was that there was only one fibre-optic link out of Guyana in the form of the America 2 cables.
About two years ago, a second cable was brought in through Suriname by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT& T). Ramotar stated that this was not sufficient, and government decided on laying a third fibre-optic cable to provide better telecommunication to augment its business functions.
“In many countries around the world, e-governance is important to getting the job done. Documents are signed by electronic signature; you don’t have to wait years to develop anything such as travelling from far-flung areas to access passport services,” Ramotar explained.
He pointed out that the cable has been laid over almost the entire designated route but it requires additional fine-tuning before the actual operations can begin. “There are also gaps in the cable run that the contractors are finishing off, so basically this is the first phase of the project,” Ramotar related.
The government is building the communications network from Georgetown to Lethem and Brazilian telecommunication company OI is responsible for providing Guyana with data access to the world from Boa Vista to Bom Fin. This will be integrated with another fibre-cable running from Moleson Creek to Parika.
The cables will interconnect to provide services, such as Internet access and video conferencing, to government agencies in the various locations.
“As the system is right now, each government agency is responsible for its own telecommunications, so in this way we will significantly lower the overall cost of telecommunications through one high-capacity cable,” Ramotar stated.
Huawei is providing the electronics and technology to establish the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) advance sites in locations with government agencies to provide wireless access. The negotiations have already begun. According to Ramotar, a decision was taken to switch from Wimax to the LTE technology in December, and again in January, due to technological advances over the past year.
“For that project, we will be working in collaboration with the Guyana Power and Light which is running new power lines from Corriverton to Edingburg, and part of their project is a fibre component so we decided instead of running another fibre component we just would use their cable and then we would extend it from Edingburg to Parika.”
Ramotar related that it would be expensive to run cables across the Essequibo River, so the microwave system will be utilised in areas such as Anna Regina to support the requirements in the region until funds are available to run the cables.
In interior locations, especially Rupununi, Ramotar noted that the fibre cable is equipped with drop-off points in areas such as Linden, Annai, Kurupakari, Lethem and Mabura. “These drop-offs would allow us to place repeater sites in these locations, especially in Annai where there is savannah, it is very easy to redistribute through microwave to other communities in that area. Iwokrama would also be taking bandwidth for their purposes and to distribute in their area,” Ramotar disclosed.
Public access
No decision has been taken as to whether the public would be allowed to access bandwidth off the fibre-optic cable in their homes, but they can benefit from visiting hubs. Ramotar stressed that areas of coverage would include the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, New Amsterdam, Port Mourant, Rose Hall, Corriverton, Skeldon and Vreed- en- Hoop, Tuschen and Parika on the West Coast; and Anna Regina, Suddie and Charity on the Essequibo Coast.
The cable was laid in 10-kilometre segments which are now being connected, tested and equipped with repeater sites. The system will then be subjected to test runs for two to three weeks to ensure the error rates are as low as specified in the design. The second phase, which deals with the coastline, will be done geographically and would depend heavily on GPL’s rollout of its new cable.
Ramotar said about 85 per cent of the project is completed and both phases are expected to cost US$ 38.2 million. Staff has recently been trained in use of the interconnection equipment and the project is now in the process of advertising for technicians to be trained in the use of fibre connection equipment.
The fibre-optic cable is expected to bring Guyana on par with the rest of the Caribbean which has become proficient in e-Governance due to its low population distribution and geographical spread.
Comments are closed.