Deep Cut

July 6, 2006 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's biggest mobile-phone operator Dialog Telekom Thursday slashed outgoing call charges by as much as 50 percent as the firm stepped up its expansion drive in the country. Call charges within the network from 11.00 pm to 6.00 am will go down by 50 percent to 2.00 rupees, while rates for outgoing peak calls have been cut by an average 30 percent, officials said.

With over 2.5 million subscribers on its network, accounting for 62 percent of Sri Lanka's 3.7 million cellular user market, Dialog hopes the new call charges will encourage new user to join the network.

"We are looking to expand the subscriber base to 3-million by year end and double the size of our network coverage by 2007," the firm’s chief executive Hans Wijayasuriya told reporters.

A unit of Telekom Malaysia, Dialog kicked off a 150 million dollar expansion drive recently to offer better data, voice services and to also install a new fibre optic cable.