Special Committee appointed to develop broadband in the country
As promised in ‘Mahinda Chinthanaya’ to provide affordable high speed
broadband Internet services to all citizens in the country, and also to
make broadband ever-present, an initiative was taken by the Presidential
Secretariat recently by appointing a committee to carryout duties to
accelerate broadband development in Sri Lanka through a strategic
process. The main structure comprises of three organizations including
Presidential Secretariat, TRCSL and ICTA. This Committee will be chaired
by Secretary to the Precedent and Chairman, TRCSL Lalith Weeratunga.
Director Re-engineering Government Program ICTA Wasantha
Deshapriya speaking at the media briefing. Also in the picture
are Consultant ICTA Sanath Siriwardena, Assistant Secretary to
the President Waruna Sri Dhanapala and Director General of TRCSL
Priyantha Kariapperuma. |
Broadband is the next generation cost effective Internet access
method that people use to access the Internet at faster speeds to
accomplish their tasks quickly and easily. Since its introduction,
broadband has managed to create many excitements in the world. The
social and economic revolution created by broadband would have been the
main reason for the creation of these excitements. Broadband is
recognized as the novel data communication technology that drives social
and economic development in the world effectively over the IT platform.
Wider bandwidth and higher data transfer speeds coexistent in modern
broadband technology promise large sum of benefits to economies upon
successful integration. Today the high speed Internet based on broadband
technology has become the catalyst for economic development all over the
world.
The relationship between broadband adoption and the increase in GDP
further reflects the significance of broadband. Making this more
colourful recently the Finland’s Government has announced the access to
the broadband in Finland as a basic human right. Moving further 1Mbps
has been selected as the minimum legal requirement in broadband access.
However in Sri Lanka, high speed broadband Internet has not become
the dominant player in economic development process as yet. People in
the country are not aware about its benefits and very rarely use for
daily tasks.
However the other regional countries have taken national level
initiatives to increase broadband penetration in their counties by
further assuring its remunerations. In this regard national policies
were implemented and certain measures have also been taken to attain
explosive growth in broadband development.
The National Broadband Consultative Committee will be focusing mainly
on high speed Internet services regarded as the catalyst in socio
economic development. To convert Sri Lanka in to a supplier of digital
goods and services to the global market a national policy for high speed
broadband Internet will be introduced to the country’s data
communication sector soon. |