Healthy contribution towards development:

SLT to expand communication network to North and East

Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT),has extended its fullest support to the Government by continuously upgrading and expanding its communication network to cater to the needs of the people with special emphasis on the Northern and Eastern areas of the country.

SLT Chairperson Leisha De Silva Chandrasena said, “As a top corporate entity in the country, SLT is looking positively at the post conflict scenario in Sri Lanka, to make a healthy contribution towards development with the national interest in mind”.

“We are fully supportive of the Government’s ongoing development programs in the North and the East. My staff is tirelessly working on network expansion to provide a range of services to these areas, which are similar to those we provide to the other parts of the country.

SLT is doing everything possible to create an excellent telecommunication infrastructure that helps to bridge the north and south of the country. This infrastructure is a vital component that will generate future economic growth, social prosperity and would also enable the stability and development of all sectors of business and administration. It will help to establish a long lasting and durable peace that fuels the national economy of the country”, she said.

The Chairperson said that after the expansion, SLT will be in a position to provide services of SLT Megaline/Wireline Connections with a bundle of value added services such as Broadband internet, International Calling Facility (IDD), CLI and Call Conferencing. SLT continues to expand the company’s copper wire line network. This has penetrated far and wide into every nook and corner of Sri Lanka.

It will also offer SLT Citylink CDMA/Wireless Connections that connects even the villages in the far corners of the country. In an attempt to reach the more rural communities, SLT launched a roll-out campaign whereby the CDMA facility was provided to rural areas, starting with Anuradhapura, she said.

SLT provides Payphone Booths to its customers. It operates Payphone Booths across the country. The SLT Payphone Booth is ubiquitous across the island, and has effectively brought telecommunications facilities within easy reach of the wider community. During 2008, these booths were upgraded to render a better service to customers. SLT Payphone Booths also enable people in the north and the east to communicate with one another, she said.

SLT Broadband has expanded broadband coverage areas via ADSL technology in Ampara, Vavuniya and it will also be available very soon in all other areas. SLT has expanded its customer base by 100 percent to reach 100,000 customers by the end of 2008. ADSL technology offers top of the line broadband services and exciting value added services such as broadband internet, VoIP services, IPTV, Video on Demand, e-Learning and gaming among many others at the command of the customer, she said.

It also offers Mobile Network through its mobile arm, Mobitel.

SLT is continuing to expand its GSM network, which currently covers more than 70 percent of the geographical expanse and more than 95 percent of the population.

The company is rapidly expanding its number of base stations and hopes to have more than 2,000 base stations operational by mid 2009, which would include base stations in the newly cleared areas in the country, she said.

SLT Broadband Network is the Company’s optical fibre ring network has been designed to provide high transport capacity, which will have more than around 1,500 kms of optical fibre to interconnect all the provinces in Sri Lanka. The network establishment facilitates seamless connectivity islandwide. The SLT optical fibre network infrastructure has expanded to cover the northern, central and southern parts of the country.

The major cities already covered through fibre optic connectivity with the MPLS network includes Kandy, Galle, Matara, Gampaha, Negombo, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Avissawela, Ratnapura, Kalutara, Matara, Hambantota and Kurunegala. Trincomalee and Jaffna will soon be covered under the on-going network expansion program, she said.

Telecommunication infrastructure is necessary for a developing country to grow and prosper in today’s competitive world of business.

To help achieve this objective, SLT has adopted the policy of building a world-class telecommunications infrastructure to help local industries grow and for direct foreign investment of colossal sums (FDI) to flow to Sri Lanka annually, she said.