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New laws for easier local and global connectivity

The Government plans to establish a class licence scheme for international telecommunications gateways and to fully liberalise local and international leased lines.

The class licence scheme will include requirements for non-discriminatory operation of gateways, licence fees that will not impose undue burdens on the operators and may include guarantees against violation of licence conditions.

The new arrangements will lead to wider customer choice, lower prices, better quality and faster network rollout.

"This decision signifies the government's clear commitment to ensuring that the citizens of Sri Lanka and businesses will reap the full benefits of a choice of high quality, low cost means to connect to the world," said Kumar Abeysinghe, Secretary of the Ministry of Mass Communication. "Unless we liberalise, we cannot create jobs for the youth of this country through call centres and other IT enabled services," he added.

Abeysinghe said that "the market opening will ensure that Sri Lanka maintains a competitive position in international telecom services that will assist all businesses, attract additional investments in IT-enabled services and help the several millions of Sri Lankans living abroad to keep in touch with their families." The Government has provided assistance to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission to establish an interconnection regime that will ensure that domestic network operators are fairly compensated for their role in international communications.

The more domestic subscribers there are, the more international calls will be made to Sri Lanka, resulting in additional termination revenues among other benefits.

The new interconnection regime that will be developed by international consultants will address several shortcomings and will ensure that the international gateways will be fruitfully integrated into the overall telecom sector.

The provision of domestic and international leased lines will be completely liberalised including the carriage of voice. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission will investigate the de facto monopoly of undersea cables and formulate recommendations for ending the monopoly.

Although satellite access has been more or less liberalized since 1999 in Sri Lanka, the Government intends to formalise the liberalisation to eliminate the necessity for approvals for obtaining satellite capacity. "The Government's focus on competition and deregulation is critical to realisation of the Prime Minister's vision of making Sri Lanka a regional hub," Abeysinghe said.

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