`The people at GT&T seem not to be living in Guyana. The rates are unreasonable...' - Ms. Eileen Cox, President of the Guyana Consumers Association

PRESIDENT of the Guyana Consumers Association and Chairperson of the Consumers Advisory Group, Ms. Eileen Cox is against steep increases in phone bills proposed by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T).

She yesterday told the Chronicle that the $5.5B increase stipulated by GT&T in its proposal to the watchdog Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is in excess of what the company stands to lose in the settlement rate change.

GT&T had enjoyed a US85 cents rate on international calls which ended January 1 this year when the order from the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), kicked in, bringing the rate U.S. carriers pay to Guyana down from US85 cents to US23 cents.

The company had made a rate-filing with the PUC with the expectation that there will be some proper rate structure or variations thereof that would have come into effect with the FCC order. The reduction has brought with it a significant reduction in revenues, GT&T said.

GT&T is proposing to increase domestic telephone rental from $250 to $1,500 and the business/commercial from $1,000 to $3,000 a month.

It wants to increase calls within exchanges from 20 cents to a whooping $4 per minute during the day, and from 10 cents per minute to $2 per minute at nights. It is also looking for an approximate 75 per cent increase for out-of-exchange-calls.

In terms of international calls, it proposes that the rate for all countries except the U.S. and the United Kingdom remain the same but that there be one off peak rate.

The rates to these two countries would be reduced with one rate being applied to both locations, $136 a minute during peak hours and $123 during off-peak.

The company also wants Internet users to pay for its line service, which is currently not paid to GT&T, but Cox pointed out that GT&T only stands to lose from this move.

She charged that GT&T is taking advantage of the opportunity to squeeze consumers in Guyana more.

She added that Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who has responsibility for telecommunications, needs to take a greater stand in the matter and must recognise that consumers have a say on the issue and not just GT&T and the PUC.

"The people at GT&T seem not to be living in Guyana. The rates are unreasonable...", she declared.

When GT&T made the filing in 1997, it did not in fact encompass the entire decrease from US85 cents to US23 cents but from US85 cents to about US50-65 cents.

The rate increase at the local level that GT&T has applied for will probably not be sufficient to compensate for the direct hit, GT&T Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Sonita Jagan had said during a news conference last year.

She had noted that the company was hoping that when in fact the US23 cents kicked in, the U.S. firms AT&T, MCI and Sprint will adjust their collection rate because even though the US23 cents is what they would pay GT&T, it is not what they would collect from their customers.

"If AT&T and MCI reduce their collection rate to the consumers in the U.S., it can take the effect of stimulating a volume increase in traffic and if that stimulates a sufficiently high enough increase in volume to offset, then the local rates will not have to go up significantly to compensate for that loss", she had explained.

"What we are asking for is an intermediary increase so that the company would not be in a position where it cannot even sustain its general operations", she had stated.

Cox also expressed concern about the poor public turnout to the PUC hearings.

The hearing with GT&T is to be held tomorrow at the Supreme Court building in Georgetown at 17:00 hrs.