Tomorrow is going to be interesting

November 9, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, My Column, Source - Kaieteur News

When the Alliance For Change decided that one way to halt the excesses of the government was to table a no-confidence motion, there was talk about the possible outcome. People started to talk about the government holding elections within a few months of the motion.

Then President Donald Ramotar decided to confront the situation head-on. In a broadcast to the nation, he said that there were important issues to be debated in the National Assembly. He spoke about the Telecommunication Bill that would liberalise the sector.

That is something that was the talk in Government. A few years ago there was the system that made use of telephone operators who had to be contacted if one wanted to make an overseas call. Sometimes that call took days because the operator had to record it then try it. When she made contact with the overseas party she would call you.

Sometimes the call came at unholy hours and one should realize that the telephone was not ubiquitous. People had to either use call boxes or go to a location that the telephone company had if you lived in the city.

Today, access to overseas numbers is there at the fingertips. Everyone has a telephone, to the extent that some overseas calls are now free. There are so many systems that one is left to wonder when the day would come when people would simply think about someone overseas and the person would be there right in your ear.

These days I can talk to relatives and friends if they are my Facebook friends by simply pressing an icon. At one time I was of the opinion that I needed Wi-Fi to make the calls. It was the same with Skype. I realize that it has to do with the telephone system, but given the freeness, I wonder about how the telephone company makes money.

But then again, telecommunication is more than telephone calls. It is about this thing called broadband that allows the transfer of data at an amazing rate. Gone are the days when people had to rely on the fare provided by the local television channels. People have cable that allows them to access foreign television channels.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. I happened to be travelling in New Jersey one day when the police pulled up. My cousin and I were driving to Canada when the vehicle blew a gasket. Had that happened in Guyana we would have been sitting there trying to call around for help. But in that corner of the world there are what is known as the state police. They seem to be everywhere at the same time.

One just pulled up within five minutes of our breakdown. The police did not approach us right away; they just sat behind us. My cousin said that they were running the plates; and so they were. They found out that the car was not stolen, that there were no unpaid parking tickets and when they did come up and asked the driver for his licence, they found that the car was indeed registered to him.

In Guyana we are still to reach that stage because we do not have broadband that would give the police unlimited access to information on every vehicle in the country. People place false plates on their cars and drive around. If there was broadband then the police would know immediately that the car should not be where it is.

Firearm information could be easily found and those who happen to run afoul of the law would be readily identified. Unlicenced drivers, those with unpaid fines and those banned would be known.

That is what I think the Bill is about, but there is a hitch. Some believe that the provider of the service would be someone selected specially by the government. There are two major telecommunication providers and they should be the ones to bring in the broadband service. However, as things stand, it seems that private individuals can do the same. The government is already bringing a major communication cable.

This cable would have the capacity to do the things that I saw the police do in New Jersey, but from what is being bandied around, the government is going to sell a section of the cable to private individuals who would then rent out bandwidth to the cable providers. Security services that want to monitor sites they are hired to protect would then have to buy from the private individuals.

But the service providers want to get into the game, and it is here that the competition would get heated. There would be price wars, but who could undersell the Government? Some say that the ultimate beneficiary would be the ordinary people, but that would be temporary.

No one likes to operate at a loss, so the major companies would simply give up; that is when the price would go up.

Yet I still want to see the legislation in place because I do need faster internet; I need to be able to see my home on my phone from any corner of the world.

However, the politicians say that the no-confidence motion is more important, because the government needs to be brought to book. President Ramotar is saying, “Not so fast.” He says that he has options, one of which is to prorogue the Parliament. If he does that, then the opposition would not have a leg to stand on for almost a year.

Indeed tomorrow is going to be interesting. It would shape the future of the country in the coming years.

Source - http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....g-to-be-interesting/