Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has over 50,000 fixed line telephones, 80,000 CDMA connections and around 3,500 broadband customers in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

The company has addressed the need to improve its communication services in these areas. In this regard, the expansion of copper and fibre access network, installation of new exchanges and the CDMA base stations have already been planned and the company hopes to invest more than Rs. 750 million for the purpose, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC Chairperson Leisha De Silva Chandrasena told Daily News Business.

She said that through infrastructure development, SLT will increase capacity to the infrastructure to provide fixed wire-line, CDMA connections and broadband facilities that provide voice, data and broadband facilities to the Northern and Eastern provinces.

There is potential in these areas to develop telecommunication services and it is expected to grow in the years to come.

“SLT has provided 2,000 broad-band connections, 11,000 CDMA phones and 1,500 fixed lines to the Northern and Eastern provinces to the facilities since June this year. We have addressed the communication needs of thousands in the Eastern province by supplying them with voice, data and internet facilities,” she said.

Development and the extension of the core-network using optical fibre is very important in providing all the facilities that are available in the urban areas to the North and the East. She said that Sri Lanka Telecom PLC is in the process of laying optical fibre networks along the A9 road to Jaffna.

Sri Lanka Telecom PLC is in the process of laying optical fibre networks on the A9 road to Jaffna.

It will make communication more convenient and create healthy competition in the market so that the customers get a better deal. The services can also be obtained at a competitive rate.

Although the CDMA technology has reached saturation point, we have observed that it is a viable and quick solution to meet the demands in the Northern and Eastern provinces. We have observed a significant demand in the broadband connections and SLT provides broadband connections through wire lines using ADSL technology.

As a substitute for the wire lines to cover the entire North and East. SLT will roll out wireless broadband solutions through Wi-Max technology. This will enable communication access to many areas such as the Northern and Eastern provinces where the optical fibre network, cannot be laid and provisions of a cable constitute is a hassle. Hence new Base Stations will be installed in these areas for the service of CDMA and Wi- Max solution, she said.

She said that Sri Lanka Telecom has a revenue growth of two percent inclusive of Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel which is a fully owned subsidiary of SLT.

Despite the world’s economic recession, Sri Lanka Telecom had more than 75 percent of Broad-band penetration and the customer base has increased from 90,000 to 150, 000 during the first nine months of the year.

She said that the Wi- Max solution will be launched by the end of next month to improve the broadband coverage where wire line solutions cannot be provided, to increase the number of customer bases further.

Despite the competition among the other 70 licensed and operators for voice, data and Internet service providers in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom has a considerable share of the market in each segment.