Some 186 cellular customers who are users of analog sets are again being urged by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company Ltd (GT&T) to change to digital sets to enjoy more benefits and user security.

The company has for some time been urging users of such systems to change to digital in order to benefit from improvements to GT&T's network which was steadily being configured.

GT&T's Public Relations Officer, Robert Bazil, when contacted yesterday stated that the latest advertisement was a continuation of a phasing-out scheme started in 1998 during which the company periodically requested customers to change their systems.

Bazil stated that tidying up of the changeover had started and persons who continued under the analog system were likely to suffer degradation in service including noise and poor quality.

According to Bazil, the analog system took up to three times more resources to function than the digital and reduced the possibility of tele-fraud. Where one channel accommodates up to three digital lines, the analog was said to only be capable of accommodating one line per channel.

The cost to replace the sets, according to Bazil, was minimal with customers only having to trade in their sets and pay $13,000. No activation charges or other costs will be attached to this transaction.

However, Bazil reiterated that the company was not in the process of cutting off analog customers, but merely reminding them of GT&T's phasing out of that technology.

Meanwhile, problems in relation to the Fixed Wireless Service recently highlighted by customers were mainly due to poor signal contact. The company, Bazil stated, had received several complaints, mainly involving the siting of the external antennas.

He said that GT&T had been continually looking at the service and making necessary improvements to its systems, but it was sure that the problems relating to these lines were not due to equipment fault. The amount of vegetation that surrounded some customer's homes and the height of their buildings, Bazil added, were causing most of the distortions being experienced.