Guyana among Caribbean countries affected by Internet outage; GTT says impact minimal

Last Updated on Monday, 7 December 2020, 16:46 by Denis Chabrol

Guyana is among several Caribbean countries that were Monday affected by a region-wide Internet outage due to a damaged submarine fibre-optic cable,  telecommunication providers said.

The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) said some of its customers might experience some service disruption. but virtually ruled out a major impact to Guyanese subscribers.

“Due to our significant investments in building the maximum resiliency available to serve our customers, no widespread outage should be expected,” said GTT spokeswoman, Jasmin Harris.  She added, “customers should not have any significant challenges during
this period.”

Ms. Harris said GTT’s team was monitoring the situation closely.

Loopnews Caribbean reported that Cable and Wireless, Flow’s parent company, said its customers could experience problems for days as it tries to resolve the issue. “Splicers and additional divers are arriving in Guadeloupe today. Guadeloupe fibre repair and restoration activity will commence tomorrow (Tuesday). This will be a temporary solution in order to quickly reestablish traffic connectivity. A tentative ETR (estimated time of repair) of Thursday, December 10, has been provided,” Cable and Wireless said.

Islands including Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines have also been experiencing issues since Monday morning.

Digicel issued a statement to customers citing technical difficulties.  “Valued customer, we are aware that some of you may be experiencing an outage with your internet services. Preliminary investigations indicate that the cause is a technical issue with our international upstream internet suppliers which is affecting multiple internet providers across T&T and the Caribbean. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused and assure you that we are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” Digicel said.