Category: Technology

Sept 11, 2007 (LBO) – Bhart Airtel has appointed Olof Haag, a former Ericsson executive, as the country head for Sri Lanka, the company said Tuesday. Haag would be the Chairman of Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka’s fifth mobile operator which is due to start operations early in 2008. “I am confident that […]

Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan mobile operator Mobitel has launched two international roaming services for customers travelling overseas. One service is the loyalty programme for in-bound international roaming customers, launched in collaboration with Travelling Connect, a global provider of loyalty management services to the telecommunication industry. A statement by Mobitel, a subsidiary of […]

Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Massachusetts-based Virtusa Corp., an IT services firm with operations in Sri Lanka that raised 57 million dollars from a NASDAQ listing last month, said its first quarter profit fell slightly. “The company’s effective tax rate increased from 3.6 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2007 to 20.4 percent in […]

Sept 06, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has dropped a controversial fixed levy from mobile phones which would have hit the poorest phone users the hardest, but slapped a 7.5 percent tax on calls, telecom minister Rauf Hakeem told parliament Thursday. The government initially proposed a fixed 50 rupee charge which would have hit the […]

Sept 05, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom, the island’s dominant fixed phone operator, has increased bandwidth to accommodate rapidly growing high-speed broadband ADSL connections and plans a further expansion by December, an official said. But SLT cannot give telecom service level agreements (SLAs) guaranteeing ADSL performance as many factors determining service quality are beyond […]

September 01, 2007 (LBO) – Millennium IT, one of Sri Lanka’s key software developers, has secured the contract to automate the centuries old tea auction system, an official said.Sri Lanka, which is better known for its high quality aromatic tea known by the country’s previous name Ceylon, is made with tender leafs and buds of […]

September 01, 2007 (LBO) – The newly set up Bharti Airtel Sri Lanka unit had hired a top Unilever official to head its operation in the island, Lanka Business Online learns. The rest is shared between Mobitel, a unit of fixed operator Sri Lanka Telecom; Tigo, a unit of Millicom International Cellular and Hutch, a […]

August 31, 2007 (LBO) – MAS Intimates, a division of Sri Lanka’s MAS Holdings specializing in lingerie, has won a top award by the enterprise resources software maker SAP for the deployment and use of its technology, the group said.Operating 28 manufacturing facilities worldwide, MAS offer design services through studios in the UK and Hong […]

August 30, 2007 (LBO) — The US Agency for International Development has teamed up with local and international partners to launch over a dozen of high speed Internet kiosks in far-flung towns outside the city of Colombo, officials said Thursday.The 700,000 dollar project is targeting 15 budding entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risk, […]

August 22, 2007 (LBO) – Hutchison Telecom’s Sri Lanka celco has doubled operating profits in the first half of 2007 and doubled subscribers in the past year, the global telecom giant said. Hutchison Telecom Lanka, the Sri Lankan mobile operations unit of Hutchison Telecom, has saw operating profits double to 31 million Hong Kong dollars […]

August 21, 2007 (LBO) – Indian telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is to increase charges on a submarine cable link with Sri Lanka Telecom that carries voice and data traffic between the two countries. It has also demanded the Indian government withdraw the new service tax and educational tax at 12.5 per cent […]

August 18, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the island’s only wireline operator, has reported 45 percent lower profits in the June quarter as it sliced 875 million rupees off revenue pending a court decision on a case filed by a consumer organization. SLT reported 560 million rupees of consolidated profits down from 1,000 […]