Category: Technology

May 25, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s broadband use is lagging the region due to low penetration of personal computers and expensive mobile handsets, though the sector has now started to grow especially in the wireline segment, a sector study said. Sri Lanka had 574,000 broadband customers by end December 2010, including 294,000 mobile broadband […]

May 24, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s mobile phone industry is ‘overcrowded’ and ripe for consolidation with intensifying competition eroding profitability, Fitch Ratings said in a new report on the telecoms sector. Overcrowding remains the key medium-term risk to telecom operators (telcos) in Sri Lanka, the rating agency said. It expects competition among local telcos […]

May 17, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lankan celcos are showing signs of recovering from cut throat competition and soaring inflation a few years ago, but experts say the recovery is short lived as the sector has already hit its next stumbling block. Shorter life spans in emerging technologies and ill advised expansion plans are the […]

May 12, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lankan mobile phone operator Dialog Axiata group said March 2011 net profit rose 64 percent to 1.2 billion rupees from a year ago with subscribers growing and lower losses from TV and broadband units. The profit was slightly lower than the 1.3 billion rupee net profit made in the […]

May 10, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka Telecom’s March 2011 quarter net profit rose 114 percent to 1,295 million rupees from a year ago with sharp gains from value-added services and the traditional fixed line business. Group sales rose two percent to 12. 4 billion rupees in the quarter ending March 31, 2011, according to […]

May 09, 2011 (LBO) – eChannelling, a listed Sri Lankan dotcom that enables patients to make appointments with doctors over the internet, has struck a deal with a software firm, allowing it to diversify outside the healthcare sector. The deal is by eChannelling and its subsidiary ECL Soft with Industrial Financial Systems (IFS), which supplies […]

May 06, 2011 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka unit of UAE-based Etisalat has commissioned a high-speed 3. 75G wireless network enabling mobile broadband customers very fast Internet access, video calls and games, and mobile television. Etisalat chief executive Dumindra Ratnayaka said potential to grow was wide with the island’s Internet penetration being only about 8. […]

May 05, 2011 (LBO) – E-Channelling, a listed Sri Lankan dotcom that enables patients to make appointments with doctors over the internet, has formed a joint venture with a British firm to diversify into BPO work. The new joint venture company, called ECL Soft, will have equal shareholdings between E-Channelling and its partner Software Distributions […]

May 04, 2011 (LBO) – TATA Communications’ Sri Lanka unit has commissioned its second international gateway in Sri Lanka improving reliability and providing back-up services to clients. œThis will enable our customers to offer higher uptime and better service levels to their end customers, thereby becoming more competitive in the international business environment, said V […]

May 03, 2011 (LBO) – India’s Firstsource Solutions is to invest a million dollars to take a 74 percent stake in Sri Lankan celco Dialog Axiata’s business process outsourcing subsidiary in a joint venture deal. The unit, Dialog Business Services, recently started by Dialog, will be renamed Firstsource-Dialog Solutions with an existing staff of 417. […]

Apr 20, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s telephone density rose to 100. 8 lines per 100 persons in 2010 showing that fixed and mobile connections had overtaken the population, in a telling demonstration of the results of ending a state monopoly. Telephone density rose from 86.6 in 2009 in a country with a population of […]

Apr 20, 2011 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata a unit of Malaysia’s Axiata played down mounting speculation that it is about to buy Suntel, a wireless fixed access provider owned by Sweden’s Telia. “There is nothing happening regarding Suntel at the moment,” Dharshana Abeysinghe, a spokesman for Dialog Axiata, said. There is intense industry […]