GTA News
GTA TeleGuam Questions Use of Broadband Stimulus Funds for Guam
Subsidy can have adverse consequences for Guam consumers and businesses
TAMUNING, Guam – (April 12, 2010) – GTA TeleGuam Monday questioned whether a federal agency that is distributing broadband stimulus funding is making the best use of that money, when some of the taxpayer funds are going for projects that will compete with private companies on Guam.
GTA TeleGuam, which was privatized five years ago, is expressing serious concern over an $8 million broadband stimulus grant by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The grant will fund construction of a “next generation network” that will compete with existing, similar infrastructure on Guam.
NTIA recently awarded the grant to IT&E, a Philippines-controlled communications company that provides service on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI for short.
“A taxpayer-funded public overbuild of communications infrastructure on Guam will jeopardize competition, risk current and new investments on the island, and it will cost Guam the loss of good-paying telecom jobs,” said Daniel J. Tydingco, executive vice president of external and legal affairs for GTA TeleGuam. “An unlevel competitive playing field can cause adverse consequences for Guam consumers and businesses.
“Unlike the situation in the CNMI, Guam has one of the most extensive telecom infrastructures and is one of the most fiercely competitive telecommunications markets in the United States,” Tydingco said. “Claims that Guam is unserved or under-served are overblown and contrary to facts on the ground.
“Awarding limited taxpayer dollars in this manner is a perverse use of government resources,” Tydingco said. “This will create publicly funded competition against private tax-paying companies like GTA TeleGuam that has a long-standing deep and ongoing commitment to create new jobs and keep them on Guam.
“This broadband stimulus funding is unneeded and inappropriate,” Tydingco said.
GTA TeleGuam plans to present its concerns to policy makers both locally and in Washington.
