Sri Lanka’s first ever highly sophisticated WiMAX 802.16e (mobile-ready) wireless broadband service launched by Sky Network, a subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) is initially set to cover nine districts and would be available in 31 locations in the island through a highly viable eco system.
According to officials, the project, which is implemented in four phases and costing an approximate US $12.8 million for two initial phases has been introduced with a vision to give people in Sri Lanka the opportunity to access high speed broadband based content.
“The WiMAX 802.16e will create value for customers including household customers, superior technology services and to the corporate sector,” according to Skynetwork CEO Mahinda Herath who said that this was a far-reaching step forward in the IT industry in making Sri Lanka the ‘Wonder of Asia’ as projected by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) which is also popularly known as 4G technology is marketed under the brand name Skymax. Sky Network’s 802.16e network is being rolled out in Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts in a first phase in which the operator expects to attract 11,000 WiMAX customers and aims to provide mobile WiMAX coverage to the entire island in four implementation phases.
The CEO said that investment for phase 1 of the broadband project consumed Rs.550 million and Sky Network’s growth plan was to serve 25,000 customers covering customer-friendly payment modes.
“We will mainly make three Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) available namely outdoor, indoor and dongle. It will offer a superior broadband experience for the household customer while the SME and corporate sector could enjoy a broadband service with certified information rates. This offering will soon incorporate other value added features such as usage and quality of service (QoS) based charging models and web based payment options,” Herath said.
He said that ‘we are developing a broadband service because CDMA customers have come to a dead end,’ he said.
Skynetwork primarily deals in Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) in reducing the cost and hassle of setting up. Skymax technology is now in the process of taking fourth generation (4G) technology to businesses and residents, he added.
The secretary to the newly set up Ministry of Telecommunication and IT and Technology, Nimal Athukorala said that the ministry had primarily been formed to empower people of Sri Lanka with IT and its indepth services.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Sri Lanka Telecom, Greg Young said that the benefits of the wireless broadband network to its customers would be cost effectiveness, high performance and fixed wireless broadband service – particularly for customers outside the reach of SLT’s fixed ADSL broadband network.
“We are experiencing ongoing strong demand for fixed broadband service having passed the 200,000 customer milestone in October last year, however, the provision of broadband over fixed-line services has limitations in its reach to areas served by our wireline network, so we are extremely pleased that wireless broadband through WiMAX 16e (mobile) technology can fill these gaps,” Young elaborated.
He said that Sri Lanka Telecom has not only a vision, but a clear strategy and plan underway to cover the entire country with high speed broadband services and its Wimax network is an integrated and critical component of this strategy.
He emphasised that the Sky Network WiMAX 802.16e network is significant technology advancement for the country marking another important milestone in the progress of telecommunication and ICT sector development in Sri Lanka.
“Across the SLT group, we provide broadband and data access services through a number of technologies and platforms that utilise our fixed network to deliver ADSL and metro Ethernet service, and utilising wireless technologies from Mobitel for 3.5G mobile Broadband services,” he added..
Young said that the country’s broadband customer base stands at around 320,000+ users including fixed wireline, fixed wireless and mobile broadband users, with SLT commanding a market Share of around 85% of the total market.
“Over the past year SLT has been working hard to expand our national optical fibre backbone network to deliver the connectivity and capacity demanded by the ongoing explosive data and internet growth and to support the expansion of our ADSL and mobile 3.5G Broadband business; and now, as an important foundation to support our WiMax network deployment,” the CEO specified while explaining that ‘the significant recent capacity increases we have made in our domestic and international network bandwidth have helped us to deliver enhancements to broadband data speeds and quality of service to many of our customers.’
As an example, he pointed out that on January 1, SLT upgraded automatically and at no extra charge the data speeds for all customers on the entrée ADSL package from 512kpbs to 1MBps, a 100% increase in speed for over 45% of SLT’s total fixed ADSL broadband customer base.
“Whilst we continue to optimise our wireline network and selectively expand its reach, it can only serve around 25-30% of the Sri Lankan households, the balance of the countries broadband access must be delivered by cost effective wireless broadband technologies - such as our Sky Networks Wimax16e network,” he reiterated.
TBL
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=35776&email=html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
According to officials, the project, which is implemented in four phases and costing an approximate US $12.8 million for two initial phases has been introduced with a vision to give people in Sri Lanka the opportunity to access high speed broadband based content.
“The WiMAX 802.16e will create value for customers including household customers, superior technology services and to the corporate sector,” according to Skynetwork CEO Mahinda Herath who said that this was a far-reaching step forward in the IT industry in making Sri Lanka the ‘Wonder of Asia’ as projected by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) which is also popularly known as 4G technology is marketed under the brand name Skymax. Sky Network’s 802.16e network is being rolled out in Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts in a first phase in which the operator expects to attract 11,000 WiMAX customers and aims to provide mobile WiMAX coverage to the entire island in four implementation phases.
The CEO said that investment for phase 1 of the broadband project consumed Rs.550 million and Sky Network’s growth plan was to serve 25,000 customers covering customer-friendly payment modes.
“We will mainly make three Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) available namely outdoor, indoor and dongle. It will offer a superior broadband experience for the household customer while the SME and corporate sector could enjoy a broadband service with certified information rates. This offering will soon incorporate other value added features such as usage and quality of service (QoS) based charging models and web based payment options,” Herath said.
He said that ‘we are developing a broadband service because CDMA customers have come to a dead end,’ he said.
Skynetwork primarily deals in Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) in reducing the cost and hassle of setting up. Skymax technology is now in the process of taking fourth generation (4G) technology to businesses and residents, he added.
The secretary to the newly set up Ministry of Telecommunication and IT and Technology, Nimal Athukorala said that the ministry had primarily been formed to empower people of Sri Lanka with IT and its indepth services.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Sri Lanka Telecom, Greg Young said that the benefits of the wireless broadband network to its customers would be cost effectiveness, high performance and fixed wireless broadband service – particularly for customers outside the reach of SLT’s fixed ADSL broadband network.
“We are experiencing ongoing strong demand for fixed broadband service having passed the 200,000 customer milestone in October last year, however, the provision of broadband over fixed-line services has limitations in its reach to areas served by our wireline network, so we are extremely pleased that wireless broadband through WiMAX 16e (mobile) technology can fill these gaps,” Young elaborated.
He said that Sri Lanka Telecom has not only a vision, but a clear strategy and plan underway to cover the entire country with high speed broadband services and its Wimax network is an integrated and critical component of this strategy.
He emphasised that the Sky Network WiMAX 802.16e network is significant technology advancement for the country marking another important milestone in the progress of telecommunication and ICT sector development in Sri Lanka.
“Across the SLT group, we provide broadband and data access services through a number of technologies and platforms that utilise our fixed network to deliver ADSL and metro Ethernet service, and utilising wireless technologies from Mobitel for 3.5G mobile Broadband services,” he added..
Young said that the country’s broadband customer base stands at around 320,000+ users including fixed wireline, fixed wireless and mobile broadband users, with SLT commanding a market Share of around 85% of the total market.
“Over the past year SLT has been working hard to expand our national optical fibre backbone network to deliver the connectivity and capacity demanded by the ongoing explosive data and internet growth and to support the expansion of our ADSL and mobile 3.5G Broadband business; and now, as an important foundation to support our WiMax network deployment,” the CEO specified while explaining that ‘the significant recent capacity increases we have made in our domestic and international network bandwidth have helped us to deliver enhancements to broadband data speeds and quality of service to many of our customers.’
As an example, he pointed out that on January 1, SLT upgraded automatically and at no extra charge the data speeds for all customers on the entrée ADSL package from 512kpbs to 1MBps, a 100% increase in speed for over 45% of SLT’s total fixed ADSL broadband customer base.
“Whilst we continue to optimise our wireline network and selectively expand its reach, it can only serve around 25-30% of the Sri Lankan households, the balance of the countries broadband access must be delivered by cost effective wireless broadband technologies - such as our Sky Networks Wimax16e network,” he reiterated.
TBL
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=35776&email=html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
