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| Sunday, 3 April 2005 |
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Suntel targets 100,000 new connections per year by Elmo Leonard Suntel, one of Sri Lanka's three fixed-phone suppliers unveiled plans last week to extend 300,000 new connections in three years, taking coverage "to the entire country." Suntel is the island's leading fixed wireless operator, now covering 200 towns and villages including the north and east and employing different technologies to reach 100,000 users. Suntel will now use the latest CDMA 200 IX technology, which is used in USA, Japan and Korea. India and China has used this technology in the last few years making these countries two of the largest telecom bases in the Asian region, the media was told. The move will involve the setting up of 200 towers, an investment of $60 million and $20 million in the short term. Answering questions, Suntel's managing director, Ms Lillemore Larsson said that its current investment here, is Rs 8.5 billion (Rs 100 to a US dollar). Making the move possible was the signing of an agreement between the Telecom Ministry and Suntel, to roll out CDMA 2000 IX based services, following a four-year wait, Larsson said. The development would also provide the latest advanced services to customers and help develop and expand ICT in the country and lower the price of telecom usage. The new technology affords very high speed data access and other features which no other technology could meet at the time, it was claimed. Suntel did not wait for the use of the new technology but within the past two months ten new locations including tsunami hit areas such as Hambantota, Trincomalee and Ampara were provided with telecom facilities, Suntel's director marketing, Hasitha Abeywardena said. The partner in the venture is Ericsson, claimed the world leader in telecom infrastructure, who will provide the CDMA 2000 IX network. Ericsson is exploring the possibility of bringing advanced voice and data services as wireless broadband to Sri Lanka, its managing director, Bimal Dayal said. Of 4.5 million households, Sri Lanka has one million fixed lines, part of which are business lines. Considering the island's GDP level, Suntel feels that the number of lines could increase to two million within the next three years. Sunel's main strength has been its ability to serve the complex business market and currently holds a large share of the corporate and SME market. Apart from making inroads into the rural areas in Sri Lanka, Suntel with the new technology will be in a position to further strengthen ties with their customers in terms of offering state of the art services using the new technology. |
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