Telephone system

Very inadequate domestic service, particularly in rural areas; some hope for improvement with privatization of national telephone company and encouragement to private investment; good international service (1999). The latest trend is the CDMA technology, because of this technology many Sri Lankans who live in rural areas can now communicate with each other faster and easier than before.

Domestic

The national trunk network consists mostly of digital microwave radio relay; fiber-optic links are now in use in the Colombo

Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

 area and two fixed wireless local loops have been installed. Competition is strong in mobile cellular systems but the teledensity rate remains as low as 16.6 phone lines per 100 persons (2004).

Although the reported phone line teledensity is 16.6 (2004) fixed phone line teledensity remains as low as 5.1, where cellular teledensity is 11.4. Reflected Cellular phone teledensity is misleading because some people have more than one phone. Therefore true teledensity remains at a very low figure.

International

Submarine cables to Indonesia and Djibouti; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) (1999)

Broadband Internet access

ADSL was introduced to Sri Lanka in 2003 by provider Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT).

The average speed is 512/128 kbit/s (64 kB/s/16 kB/s), costing Rs. 1600+VAT(US$ 16 approx.) per month for an unmetered flat rate. This is the standard for SLT and resellers. Faster connections up to 2 Mbit/s are available, but the price is considerably higher (Rs. 6500 for 2 Mbit/s (0.25 MB/s))(US$ 65 approx.). In peak hours there are lot of complaints from customers that they are not able to achieve these speeds.
The service is available within the Greater Colombo area, Kandy, Galle and is currently being extended. Recently Sri Lanka Telecom has introduced a new plan where one can transfer up to 1.5GB of data per month for Rs. 500/- (US$ 5 approx.) at speeds of 256kb upload /1 Mbit/s download. Charge for each additional 1MB is Rs. 0.35 (35 Cents).

Other Communication

Postal Service: Sri Lanka Post

Sri Lanka Post

The Department of Posts, functioning under the brand name Sri Lanka Post, is a government operated postal system in Sri Lanka. The postal headquarters is the General Post Office which is located in Colombo. The department itself comes under the purview of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Posts...

Radio broadcast stations: AM 15, FM 50, shortwave 5

Radio: Est Number of Radio sets: 12 million

Television broadcast stations: 21 (1997)

Televisions: Est 5 million( including B & W sets)

Satellite Earth Stations located: Padukka

Padukka

Padukka is a town in the district of Colombo in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. It has a population of roughly 8,000. Elevation 44feet....

 and Colombo

Colombo

Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...

 and review

ISP

Internet service provider

An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

s: 10

Country code / Top-level domain: LK

Telcommunications Regulatory Environment in Sri Lanka

LIRNEasia

LIRNEasia

LIRNEasia is an information and communication technology policy and regulation think-tank active across the Asia Pacific region. The organization is incorporated under the Sri Lankan law as a non-profit organization. It was launched in September 2004 under the leadership of...

's Telecommunications Regulatory Environment (TRE) index, which summarizes stakeholders’ perception on certain TRE dimensions, provides insight into how conducive the environment is for further development and progress. The most recent survey was conducted in July 2008 in eight Asian countries, including Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, Maldives

Maldives

The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...

, Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, and the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. The tool measured seven dimensions: i) market entry; ii) access to scarce resources; iii) interconnection; iv) tariff regulation; v) anti-competitive practices; and vi) universal services; vii) quality of service, for the fixed, mobile and broadband sectors.

In Sri Lanka, the mobile sector receives higher scores than the fixed sector for all dimensions excepting interconnection. The broadband sector lags behind both the fixed and mobile sectors in all but one of the parameters (regulation of anti-competitive practices). What also emerges in the
results illustrated above is that all the sectors – other than mobile sector USOs – fall below the 3.00 average performance level.

See also

• List of Sri Lanka Telephone Codes
• Gunaratne, Shelton (1996). Sri Lanka and the Third Communication Revolution
• SLBC-creating new waves of history
• Eighty Years of Broadcasting in Sri Lanka