Category: Technology

PARIS, December 19, 2008 (AFP) – Internet and telephone communications between Europe, the Middle East and Asia were severely disrupted Friday after three undersea cables were damaged in the Mediterranean, France Telecom said.“The causes of the cut, which is located in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, on sections linking Sicily to Egypt, remain unclear,” […]

PARIS, December 20, 2008 (AFP) – A French ship on Saturday took experts to repair broken undersea Mediterranean cables that caused severe disruption to telephone and Internet services across the Middle East and Asia, France Telecom said. But many operators said communications services had improved as alternative routes had been used to carry calls and […]

Dec 16, 2008 (LBO) – Dialog Telecom, Sri Lanka’s largest telco, says the introduction of Blackberry mobile devices has boosted productivity at Brandix, a top apparel firm that has become its largest user. Blackberry allows users to check and respond to mail, download attachments and also use calendars and address books. Dialog says it is […]

Dec 01, 2008 (LBO) – Fitch Ratings has confirmed Sri Lanka Telecom’s ‘B+’ long term foreign currency credit rating, with a stable outlook, and says it is increasing market share in the mobile market, though margins are narrowing. “The company also enjoys a dominant share of the international long-distance and IP and data-related services.” In […]

Nov 28, 2008 (LBO) – Profits of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) group, the island’s largest fixed access carrier, fell 31 percent to 1,235 million rupees with revenues growing 4 percent to 11,691 million in the quarter ended September 2008. The stand alone fixed access unit, which excludes the cellular subsidiary Mobitel, saw profits fall 45 […]

Nov 23, 2008 (LBO) – Top Sri Lankan celcos are slashing prices ahead of the entry of a fifth operator to the market, in a street fight that analysts say is set to haemorrhage bottom lines of the entire sector. In the last quarter Mobitel, a unit of fixed access provider Sri Lanka Telecom, and […]

Nov 13, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Dialog Telekom group, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, has reported a loss of 192.4 million rupees for the September 2008 quarter with profits of its core business also falling steeply amid a price-war. But it had lost 921 million rupees over the first nine months. Dialog Television had […]

Nov 07, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has made a new 10 percent telephone tax technology neutral by extending it from mobile phones to fixed lines as a part of proposals to raise revenue in 2009. The think tank strongly opposed an original state proposal to charge a fixed levy on mobile phones. LirneAsia chief […]

Oct 29, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lankan fixed access provider Lanka Bell said it would pay subscribers that receive overseas calls 50 cents a minute, setting the stage for competition in the incoming call business. Corporate users would also benefit substantially by making Lanka Bell their choice for incoming IDD calls, Samarasinghe said. Under an […]

Oct 25, 2008 (LBO) – The global economic crisis may reduce information technology outsource work for companies in Sri Lanka but at the same time generate new business opportunities, a top Sri Lankan software firm said.“So in the last two years the volumes increased 20 fold.” He said this massive rise in stock market activity […]

Oct 17, 2008 (LBO) – Advances in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) could help companies, especially mid-sized ones, to improve and gain competitive advantage, Sri Lankan experts say. HP said it hopes to do more such projects to help deploy ICT effectively and efficiently in medium sized organizations. The University of Colombo School of Computing […]

Oct 15, 2008 (LBO) – South Asian telecommunications regulators meeting for a regional conference in New Delhi, India will today discuss lowering roaming tariffs, officials said. Tariffs on calls made between the member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation are much higher than calls made to distant countries like the UK and […]