High speed broadband:

Is Sri Lanka’s communication infrastructure sufficient? - Part 10

Sanath Siriwardena

This would be the most controversial question ever to be asked when it comes to broadband deployment. And this question was frequently raised by many concerned parties and individuals. But before we go any further in detail, it is wise to answer this question. Yes, indeed the country’s data transport infrastructure is highly capable of handling any demand of data traffic that generates in the country.

Having said that it is important to understand why such a question was raised by the public, we need to look at the nature of the question that gives us some clues. One is the superiority of the technology that resides in high speed broadband. And the other would be the low quality broadband service found in the country.

However, the first reason could be eliminated easily since Sri Lanka is known to be a country in the South Asian region where it uses sophisticated communication technologies. This is usually reflected by commercial advertisements put on the public media by service providers in the country. The phrase ‘South Asia’s first’ is commonly used to attract customers to their networks and now become a fashion. However for better understanding we must briefly look at the data communication networks and technologies we are using in the data transport.

Optical under sea cable system in Asia that carry Internet traffic. Picture courtesy Alcatel - Lucent

Though we have not reached the top in IT in the region, Sri Lanka is a high tech country. But the saddest thing is, though we have spent millions of rupees each year for the import of highly sophisticated telecommunications equipments to the country, so far our people haven’t been able to get the intended benefits of IT.

The reality is, to contend with its competitors in the market, providers are spending colossal amounts of money to upgrade their networks and to import latest technologies to the country. But the quality of the Internet was never improved. Obviously, people who have come across with substandard broadband Internet services might have built doubts about the country’s infrastructure thinking that lack of infrastructure would be the problem for lower quality broadband services in Sri Lanka.

When introducing broadband to the country in 2003, the country’s existing telephone copper wire network was selected as the platform to provide ADSL. ADSL technology regarded as one of the most popular technology at that time in the world permits to provide speeds up to 8 Mbps under normal condition using copper wires.

Despite its data transferring capabilities ADSL, users never had the privilege of enjoying the technology to the fullest, due to lower quality Internet services being provided. But this condition was somewhat misinterpreted in the society citing ADSL as an incompatible technology to provide fast Internet services using copper wires.

As a wired medium used to provide high speed broadband Internet, ADSL is capable of providing even higher speeds up to 24 Mbps using the same old copper wire. Anyhow, to achieve these high speeds over ADSL some conversions must be carried out at the telephone exchange level.

Once the conversion is completed, this new system called ADSL 2, pumps data further down on the line with much faster speeds. The copper telephone wire used in Sri Lanka 24 AWG or 26 AWG is capable of transmitting data up to 200 Mbps for the households within 500 meters from the exchange using VDSL 2 (Very High Digital Subscriber Line 2).

This permits operators to provide high end applications such as IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) over ADSL using the same telephone wires. What does that mean? The country’s existing telephone cable network is capable of delivering even next generation technologies by utilising the present infrastructure facilities to the fullest.

However, if the provider wishes to cater to real high speeds to ADSL users in the country like numerous operators have done in other parts of the world, majority of ADSL customers would have the chance of getting 6 Mbps in ADSL 2 service. Surprisingly still it’s the same telephone wire he or she uses for the phone to make and receive calls.

Wireless broadband Internet is pretty much new to the country. But it’s empowered with unmatched capabilities. We have been using two wireless technologies when providing broadband Internet in Sri Lanka. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) and HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technologies were commonly used.

The country’s present HSPA platformance is capable of providing speeds up to 7.2 Mbps and in WiMAX technology permits to go beyond 30 Mbps in normal conditions. In addition to all these, some operators are even having Gigabit metro Ethernet rings in the island connecting metropolitan areas. This shows the capabilities of data transport infrastructure facility in the country.

This present data transport infrastructure is adequate to supply a majority of users in Sri Lanka with bandwidth capacity of 5 Mbps. When considering the country’s present Internet bandwidth demand required by users, 1 Mbps service would be fairly sufficient to do their transactions over the Internet. To assure users were not left behind by changing technology, this 1 Mbps service must be revised periodically to keep the momentum going in broadband.

The existing technologies used for the delivery of broadband in the country; wired and wireless are highly capable of transporting high end Megabit Internet services to the nation. Having identified that, it is now wise to identify the capabilities of the next level of transport segment that lies outside our territory.

The next infrastructure facility that governs Internet in the country is the International bandwidth. The huge Internet demand generated inside the country reaches its destinations via fiber optic cables which runs under the sea bed by connecting countries physically.

This vital network segment is known as the backbone and that connects us to the world. The available backbone capacity is very important and plays a major role in the Internet. When ADSL was introduced in 2003, SLT were on two circuits with the capacity less than 100 Mbps for two locations in the world and that had been used for the transportation of international data traffic. SEA-ME-WE 3 (South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe) is the name of the submarine cable that runs from Japan to Germany via Sri Lanka under the sea bed.

As a result of periodic backbone expansions carried out by the SLT, their backbone capacity had increased to 3 Gbps and this was recently revealed by SLT to the media. A newly built fiber optic cable SEA-ME-WE 4 is now being used for the international traffic. Its capacity is approximately 32 times more to the capacity of its predecessor, SEA-ME-WE 3. This fiber optic migration from Gigabit to Terabit has given more redundancy capabilities and lager international circuit capacities to Sri Lanka than ever before.

Recently Lanka bell connected to another fiber optic cable system called FLAG (Fiber Optic Link Around the Globe). These huge capacities offered by both the submarine fiber optic cables, SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG provide better redundancy and lager traffic transportation capabilities to the country.

Much of the technology for broadband Internet is already available in the country. Infrastructure is adequate to run high speed broadband Internet without any degradation in service quality.

Locally and internationally we are strong enough to face growing demands of applications emerging in the Internet platform. But what lacks here? And what would be the reason for broadband not to become the driver of our economy? There can’t be any technical reason for the substandard broadband Internet services in the country. The right technology is already deployed. Four providers are operating and using both wired and wireless networks to reach its subscribers. But what would be the reason?

It is the lack of intervention of the authorities that led broadband to this disastrous situation. No national priority was ever given and the national vision for broadband was never published. This unregulated broadband market has become a playground for operators. Broadband standards were designed and finalised by the operators and tailored to suit their budgets.

The colossal damage caused by an under-developed broadband market to Sri Lankan economy cannot me measured. As a result the economic and social benefit incorporated in high speed broadband vanishes just in front of our own eyes leaving the country in economic crisis forever.

Despite the declining trends in international bandwidth charges; charge per Megabit has been statically maintained for more than five years. This unregulated broadband market competition motivates operators to advertise fake deals to customers by promising speeds that they are never capable of providing. Absence of guidelines and non existence of an advertising watch dog institute is what the operators enjoy today.

Sri Lanka is empowered with the latest broadband technologies. Data transport infrastructure has no relationship whatsoever to the present broadband quality in the island. What is inadequate is the administrative infrastructure and not the data infrastructure that carries traffic. Local data transport network is capable of handling future demands of Internet.

The unmatched International bandwidth capacity permits to expand to Terabits if such a demand arises in the future. More or less the country’s underutilised infrastructure would be a burden to our economy.

Proper utilisation of data networks would assure economic and social gains rapidly to the society than we could ever imagine.

List of previous articles on this series by the writer:

1. Strengthening economy with broadband Internet (Daily News/12.02.2008)

2. Enhancing National Security with Broadband Internet (Daily News/06.04.2008)

3. National policy for high speed broadband Internet (Daily News/27.05.2008)

4. Cutting down fuel costs with high speed broadband Internet (Daily News/30.06.2008)

5. E-Government is the right module for Sri Lanka (Daily News/05.08.2008)

6. Broadband Internet would never become live until powered with speed (Daily News/12.08.2008)

7. Has Sri Lankans been told about the benefits of Internet? (Daily News/26.08.2008)

8. Wireless mobile broadband changes the way we access Internet (Daily News/04.09.2008)

9. Delivering ICT and e-applications only possible with the right bandwidth (Daily News/23.09.2008)