24 March 2016 03:48 pm Views - 2400
GM/ i-Sri Lanka Programme Management - Mangala Samarajeewa, Chief Network Officer - Priyantha Fernandez, Chairman – SLT Group - P. G. Kumarasinghe Sirisena, Chief Regional Officer - Chinthaka Wijesuriya, GM/ Product Development & Management - Prabhath Dahanayake
Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the leading ICT solutions provider in the country celebrated the successful completion of yet another milestone and the official closing ceremony of the company’s i-Sri Lanka program at Waters’ Edge on Monday, 28th March 2016. Mr. John Lee, CEO of ZTE Corporation and Mr.Wangshunli, CEO of Huawei Technologies who are SLT’s partners for the i-Sri Lanka program, together with representatives from both the companies were present at the occasion. SLT Chairman, Mr. P.G. Kumarasinghe Sirisena, SLT Group CEO, Mr. Dileepa Wijesundera, the Board of Directors of SLT as well as other SLT officers were also present at the event.
Back in the year 2005, SLT embarked on a massive project to upgrade its legacy network to a Next Generation Network (NGN). This was expedited when in the year 2011, the company launched its i-Sri Lanka Program under the main vision “Broadening Horizons.” Through this project, the company sought to bridge the digital divide in the country and ensure that all citizens in all parts of Sri Lanka has access to consistent, uninterrupted high speed internet that is on par with international standards. Through this program, the company sought to provide broadband connectivity at the speed ofup to 20 Mbps speed to 90% of its customers to ensure that customers are able to experience broadband connectivity as never before.
In December 2015, SLT completed all phases of the i-Sri Lanka program by adding over 4,500 new access nodes across the island which comprised of an investment that exceeded Rs. 13 Bn. Through the i-Sri Lanka program, broadband connectivity is now available in almost all the cities of the country. Further, with the marking of this important milestone, SLT will be able to provide 1,300,000 more broadband connections at data rates of up to 20 Mbps and will support Sri Lanka’s first Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) network which is set to deliver data speeds of 100 Mbps. With this, SLT will be able to serve 70,000 households through FTTH by the end of this year 2016.
With the completion of this project, Sri Lanka has become one of the most connected countries in South Asia. This network transformation is the precursor for unleashing many new and unique products and services across the areas of voice, data and video to SLT’s customers, inspired by the company’s vision to connect all Sri Lankans seamlessly with world class information, communication and entertainment services across the country.