A five hundred thousand dollar project has been launched in the rural community of Morne Longue, in St Andrew that promises to increase telecommunications access in the area.
The National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC), through its universal service fund initiative launched another of its community access points on Wednesday
The NTRC Universal Service Fund project is aimed at facilitating the expansion of telecommunications services throughout Grenada to ensure each citizen can access perennial telecommunications network and services.
The fund is made up of contributions from local telecommunications companies like LIME, Columbus communications, affordable island communications and Digicel.
The community access will provide people of Morne Longue with Broadband Internet Service also to be used by other service providers to bring utilities like cable television and cell phone service to the area. These are services that have never been found in that community.
Christa Burke Medford of the NTRC said, the project bridges the information gap in these areas.
“It is envisaged that the broadband programme will boost the provision of other services such as e-government, e-health, e-commerce and distance learning”, she said.
Residents will also be able to improve their skills to become better positioned to obtain employment opportunities, to find markets for products, particularly for farmers who are unable to find markets locally; they can utilize the internet to access markets beyond the boundaries of Grenada, thereby increasing their earning potential.
The project is funded by LIME, and Manager Angus Steel said, he is happy to collaborate in this initiative.
“This project hits to the heart of who we are generally, in the way we conduct business in support of families and communities, in our efforts as a technological company, and as part of our own corporate responsibility in giving back to our communities”, the LIME Manger said.
Minister for Communications, Works and Public Utilities said, it is projects like these which speak to the realization of government’s proposed new economy. He added, that it will enhance economic growth and improve the people’s standard of living.
“To move from paper to paperless learning, to ensure that our children can access information stored in libraries throughout the world to make them better and brighter persons. Ideally, we are not training them in academics, but at the end of the day we want them to be able to get jobs and to be able to provide jobs themselves, and we want them to as we pronounced in 1995 to be able to sit in Grenada and work for companies outside of Grenada”, Minister Bowen said.
The Community Access Points project will benefit the communities of Morne Longue in St Andrew and Darvey in St Patrick.
GIS
