• Says no subsidiary will beclosed down
• Operations of SLT muve remain suspended since March

By Nishel Fernando 
National telecommunications services provider, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT), has decided to restructure two of its subsidiaries and its ride-hailing venture, SLT muve, after evaluating the past performances and considering the opportunities and challenges in the post-COVID-19 environment, Mirror Business leant. After extensive discussions, SLT director board recently decided to restructure SLT Human Capital Solutions (Private) Limited and Sri Lanka Telecom (Services) Limited as well as SLT muve venture, which comes under SLT Digital Info Services (Private) Limited.

Accordingly, the SLT management has already commenced the restructuring process on SLT Human Capital Solutions (Private) Limited, which would be soon followed by Sri Lanka Telecom (Services) Limited. Meanwhile, the operations of its ride-hailing venture, SLT muve, remain suspended since late March.

Although the board of directors of SLT has given the nod for the restructure of the venture, SLT also needs the approval of its strategic partner in this venture, Australia-based Technology 
Network Australia, to move ahead with the restructuring process.  

Some SLT employees have also raised concerns on the credibility of Technology Network Australia.

Speaking to Mirror Business, an SLT official noted that SLT is now looking for new investors to expand the ride-hailing service, which was launched last year.

However, Technology Network Australia and SLT are yet to reach an agreement on the future operations of the venture while discussions are continuing, as both parties are revisiting the business case for the venture. 

The performance of the ride-hailing industry remains eroded due to COVID-19-related restrictions in Sri Lanka and globally. 

Meanwhile, Speaking to Mirror Business, SLT Chief Executive Officer and Chief Commercial Officer Kiththi Perera stressed that the SLT group will not close down any of its subsidiaries and the restructuring of the two subsidiaries is aimed at improving the group’s overall performance. 

“Some of them (subsidiaries) have been quite successful and some need to be restructured. Therefore, we are in the process of restructuring these subsidiaries for the betterment of the company, so the anticipated outcomes will be obtained for the holding company but we are not closing down any subsidiaries,” he elaborated. 

Commenting on the planned restructuring of Sri Lanka Telecom (Services) Limited, he noted that the subsidiary would realign with SLT’s core business activities after identifying opportunities in the post-COVID-19 era. 

“We are currently in the process of implementing two million FTTH ports to our customers. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we realised that broadband is essential for any household in the country.   

What we are trying to do is to better align our services subsidiaries to support this initiative. They were also involved in some businesses other than OST development, so we really want them to focus on OST development activities. We will implement these very soon,” he added. 

Further, the SLT group is also increasingly looking at providing innovative solutions to its cooperate clientele, which include both state and private sector institutions. 

The SLT group is also currently revisiting the entire business plan for SLT and its key subsidiary Mobitel.

SLT clarifies on recent cyberattack

Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT) yesterday said it had detected an attempt of a cyberattack on its internal system. A REvil attack, which has affected IT systems all over the world from time to time, has been identified as the reason. 
While assuring that all customer information is safe, SLT said the attempted attack affected only a section of its internal IT systems.

“Our vigilant early warning systems detected the attempt and precautionary measures with shutdown of some servers were implemented without delay. These servers are isolated and corrective action is being taken.  There is no impact to any system that is used to provide SLT services. Thus, there is no risk to any services offered to our customers and also there is no risk to customer information.  

System experts are attending to the issue and have already identified all the areas and SLT internal services will be restored in a short time. Our expert teams have detected the threat at a very early stage and successfully isolated the problem,” a statement issued by the SLT management said.

“SLT would like to affirm that all our government and business services, voice services, broadband services, PeoTV and hosting services, are not impacted due to this internal issue and that the customer information is safe and secure. 

The value-added services such as ordering extra GB for broadband services are also provided online, through the MySLT app and via the contact centre on 1212.

We kindly advise our customers to implement the required precautionary measures as much as possible by considering the current hostile nature of these cyberattacks,” it added.