World Telecommunication and Information Society Day:

Stepping into the space age

Indeewara TILAKARATNE

Priyantha Kariyapperuma

With the launch of LEO communication satellite and allied infrastructure in ITC, Sri Lanka is poised to enter the space era - Priyantha Kariyapperuma.

In an exclusive interview, Director General of Telecommunication Regulation Commission Priyatha Kariyapperuma spells out Sri Lanka’s vision and the mission that would make Sri Lanka truly a knowledge based society with state-of-the-art infrastructure in ITC.

Synopsis of the interview

Q: How do you consider the challenges and opportunities of ITC in Sri Lanka against the backdrop of Government’s declaration of this year as the Year of IT and English?

A: Today, we celebrate world Telecommunication and Information Society Day.

This year marks the 144th anniversary of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) which came into being in 1865. Since then ITU is responsible for directing and regulating the growth and the sustainability of Telecommunication Industry in the world. This year’s theme is “Protecting Children in Cyber Space”.

As you know, Sri Lanka has already taken some initiatives towards achieving this objective. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has directed the Telecommunication Regulation Commission (TRCSL) to take measures to filter obscene and phonographic sites from cyber space. We have already directed service providers and operators to take steps to filter the Internet net.

Some operators have already taken steps while others are now filtering the internet. As children are the future of the nation, it is imperative to take steps towards that protecting them.

Therefore it is a very timely and relevant theme. Apart from phonographic sites, children can be abused in the cyber space by unknown users. There are chat sites, U-tube and even e-mails can be abused.

Protecting children in cyber space

There are regulations in all the countries and Sri Lanka has an Act to protect civilians from cyber crimes. We also need to bring regulatory frameworks although the objectives cannot be achieved only through regulation. It has a lot of moral and ethical obligations on the part of users of ITC.

Since Government has declared this year as Year of IT and English, we want to promote IT and provide more and broader band internet connections, to develop into a knowledge based society and to have a knowledge economy. But we also have to minimise and take care of the negative impact of internet particularly on children. As poly-makers and regulators, we need to make sure that safe access to the internet is a must. Therefore, this theme is timely and relevant.

State-of-the-art infrastructure

The Secretary General of the ITU, Dr. Hamadoun I. Tour visited Sri Lanka last year. Having seen the impressive progress achieved in the Telecommunication Sector in Sri Lanka, Government’s initiatives and President’s efforts in particular, he presented President Rajapaksa the ITU Medal for Excellence in Telecommunication. He also appreciated the Government’s initiatives, dynamism of the private sector and investor confidence in the sector. All three factors would constitute a state-of-the-art telecommunication infrastructure in Sri Lanka. We already have 3.5 G which some of our neighbours do not have and Sri Lanka in a position to introduce next generation networks. This was the reason that ITU chosen Sri Lanka for Net Generation Network Standardisation Forum in Colombo which was held last month. We are indeed proud to showcase our capabilities to the world. This is the first time that CPO and ITU hosted an event together.

There were over two hundred participants and for four days, the important deliberations were made in standardisation of Next Generation Network for the future. The following week I was invited to the World Telecommunication Policy Forum which was held in Lisbon in Portugal where I chaired the penal session of the forum and adapted the draft opinion on Next Generation Networks (NGNs). There were over 950 participants from 124 countries.

NGN is a packet based network able to provide telecommunication services and to make use of multiple broadband, QOS enabled transport technologies in which service related functions are independent from underlying transport related technologies. It offers unfettered access by users to different service providers and supports generalized mobility which will allow consistent and ubiquitous provision of services to users.

Q: Apart from the above developments, plans have already been afoot for Sri Lanka to launch its space programmes with the launch of first communication satellite from Sri Lanka. What is the progress so far achieved in this respect?

Head Table (Left to right): Lasantha de Alwis, Senior Manager Programmes, Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO), Paolo Rosa, Head of Workshops and Promotion Division, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Honourable Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology, Priyantha Kariyapperuma, Director General, Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL), Malcolm Johnson, Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), M.S. Sellasamy, Deputy Minister of Post and Telecommunications, Marcel G.A. Belingue, Senior Manager Programme, Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO) and Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, Group Chief Operating Officer, TM International and Group CEO, Dialog Telekom.

A: Sri Lanka has already have mobile broadband which has tremendously expanded scope of communication. The next stage is Next Generation Networks.

It means the convergence of the technologies like GSMA, CDMA into a new technology called LTE (Long Term Evolution). Technologies like Wimax, IP TV and VOIP (Voice over IP) are next generation technologies.

In Sri Lanka, telecommunication density is 55%. We have to increase availability of computers and bring down and train teachers in order to develop IT education in Sri Lanka. Government’s aim is to increase digital literacy, at least, to fifty percent within next two years. Two Presidential Task Forces have been set up for IT and English.

We tied up with university of Surrey which transfers the satellite technology to Sri Lanka. The Founder of Surrey Satellites Professor. Sir Martin Sweeting, University of Surrey in UK visited.

We have embarked on this project and already done initial ground works. We will launch Low Earth Orbit Satellites (LEO Satellites) for taking images, coastal conservation, and mapping and look after exclusive economic zones and Geo-stationary Satellite for telecommunication purposes. With introducing course in space technology, Sri Lanka will have fully-fledged space capacity by 2011.

We also want to have national fibre optic backbone, link North and East and set up common structures; one in Greater Colombo and in the north. In Peliyagoda, 250m tower will be constructed in this year and a tower will be set up in Kokavil where all the TV, Radio and Telecommunication companies could share the tower.Like KL Tower in Malaysia, Teheran Tower in Iran, the tower will be a national icon.