Why Guyana is becoming a new ICT hotspot

Despite tensions with neighbor Venezuela, Guyana is steadily emerging as a hotspot for new telecom and digital infrastructure projects in Latin America.

Much of this growth is linked to the major oil and gas discoveries off the country’s coast, which promise to spark an economic boom, as different market sources told BNamericas in recent months. The energy potential is also said to be among the reasons for Venezuela’s claim over the Essequibo region.

Reliable cables, satellites, mobile networks and related communications technologies are key to support this industry. 

But with a considerable digital divide still to be bridged, Guyana’s telecom opportunities go beyond its flourishing energy market. The country only liberalized its telecom sector in 2020, opening it up to competition.

On January 27, Prime Minister Mark Phillips said during the launch of Samsung’s S24 smartphone by carrier Enet that the government was committed to “developing a robust telecommunications industry on par with global standards.”

As achievements, Phillips highlighted increased telecom investment, granting of additional operator licenses, the debut of 5G services and the removal of VAT on internet data for home customers, according to a press release.

In February last year, Guyana granted a license for a new mobile carrier called Green Gibraltar. The company was reportedly planning to offer 5G services in seven of Guyana’s 10 regions.

“Telecommunications play a pivotal role in the progress of any country, connecting people, fostering economic growth, and providing opportunities. Our government is steadfast in ensuring that Guyana has an advanced and reliable telecommunications industry comparable with the wider world,” Phillips said.

Precise telecoms market data does not exist, but Guyana is estimated to have some 880,000 mobile subscribers, with market penetration of 108%.

SUBMARINE CABLES AND MORE

The country is set to receive a new telecom submarine cable soon, namely Digicel’s Deep Blue One system, whose rollout started in December. It will also connect French Guiana, Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname. 

Deep Blue One will be the first cable to land in Guyana since 2019, when Enet activated its Barbados-Guyana X-Link cable. The focus of the new one is on serving oil rigs.

A third cable connecting the country is the Suriname-Guyana Submarine Cable System, or SG-SCS, which also links Trinidad & Tobago and French Guiana. SG-SCS went live in 2010 and is operated by Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) and Venezuela's Telesur.

Energy companies are also pushing their own systems.

ExxonMobil this month received fiber cables that it will use to connect a new local operations center expected to be completed this year.

The company’s Guyanese center is being built in Ogle, Demerara region, with control rooms and other monitoring facilities to manage offshore operations in real time. 

The technology to be introduced is also expected to enable field access data and planning, along with remote process monitoring and inspection.

China’s Huawei is another company improving data storage and processing structures in the country, as it seeks to increase the footprint of its Huawei Cloud service. 

Although it doesn’t operate major datacenters, Huawei has been doubling down on content-delivery network (CDN) sites in Guyana, Surinam and other locations in the Caribbean.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite service is also expected to launch in Guyana this year.

Irtiaz Ahmad, telecoms managing director at New York-headquartered financial advisory firm Solomon Partners, told BNamericas in October that Guyana is a market to watch.

“Guyana is sitting on top of one of the largest oil reserves in the world that has really only recently been discovered and started to be extracted in the last couple of years,” he said.

“So it's extremely early days, but we've seen the development of similar markets in the Middle East and in Asia, when you have these natural resources and it fosters some level of migration, some level of population growth, more densification of urban metropolitan areas, and with that the need for additional fiber, broader digital infrastructure,” Ahmad added.

During Enet’s event, Phillips touted private carriers and urged industry operators to continue investing and innovating.

“Guyana is on the brink of massive development, and we must ensure that we prepare our country for the influx of opportunities that have already begun. That means being ready to chase new horizons and achieve greater initiatives that will ensure that our country continues along that trajectory of development and prosperity,” he said.