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| Sunday, 29 June 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Broadband Internet access - for the first time in Sri Lanka by Carol Aloysius For Sri Lankan Internet users, downloading information from the Internet especially business documents and multimedia packages has usually been a time consuming and costly exercise. Not any more. That is, if you are a subscriber to Sri Lanka Telecom's newest service to customers: the ADSL Home/Office Express. This pioneering service, introduced for the first time in Sri Lanka by the SLT, not only gives users faster access to the Internet with download speeds of 511Kbits or 2Mbits and upload speeds of 128Kbps or 512Kbps, which is 30 times the speed of a normal 56k modem, but also allows users to make and receive phone calls and send or receive faxes over the telephone while surfing the net on the same line! This feature ensures that there is no interruption to regular telephone usage. "ADSL uses your standard existing telephone line. It takes you off the public switched telephone network and connects you onto the Internet or any other connected data network online. Sri Lanka is the first country in South Asia to have access to broadband technology," Chinthaka Wijewickrama, Managing Director of SALA Enterprises, the sole authorised dealer for ADSL products, said. The Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (so called because the upload and download speeds vary) offers a simpler and more reliable and uninterrupted Internet connection than analog and ISDN access, Wijewickrama pointed out. "Being asymmetric, the technology allows downloading of information faster than it uploads, which is well suited for browsing the Internet. With ADSL, you are always connected to the Internet. E-mails can be received regularly as they arrive. In short, what subscribers get is real-time connectivity, which allows services directly on the Internet at any time". Downloading heavy graphics or multimedia packages will be much faster than the usual Internet access of 56Kbps, he added. "You can also access real multimedia on the web such as streaming videos, movies, music and games with absolute clarity." The technology has been made available to SALA Enterprises through a Singapore-based company, FIDA International Pte Ltd, which was responsible for supplying the PROLINK Hurricane 8800. The latter is an Ethernet ADSL Bridge/Router which supports Full-Rate ADSL transmission at upto 8 Mbps downstream and upto 832Kbps upstream and can be connected to a small, home office or a single Ethernet equipped PC to provide broadband services to a single or multi-user environment. "We are the chief suppliers of PROLINK products. Before introducing this new technology to any country, we train local operators. We have trained some SLT officers in operating the new technology", Jack Huang, General Manager FIDA International said. The sky is the limit it seems for users of ADSL, according to Wijewickrama."You can use it to get a medical opinion from a doctor living in another country, order a product from a shopping mall in Sri Lanka or abroad, or to talk to a loved one living abroad, and see him/her at the same time - all this at a minimal cost and in the fastest possible time. This means that tele-medicine, tele-marketing and video conferencing, once beyond the reach of the average Internet subscriber, will soon be accessible to all," he observed. You get unlimited access to the Internet and other SLTnet services. You can use the Internet for as long as you wish without the fear of mounting bills. All you need is a fixed monthly fee and unlimited connectivity and usage is yours, minus the dial-up charges. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
