Mobitel rings for kids with South East Asia’s first Portal

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT)-Mobitel, the National Mobile Service Provider (MSP), introduced a dynamic new kids portal on October 1, International Children’s Day, making it the first mobile company in south Asia to introduce such a service.

Branded ‘Mobitel Junior’, the service is a voice application package for children aged 4 to 12. By simply dialing 333, kids can gain access to a wide variety of information and entertainment such as stories (sandawathie nandage kathandara), general knowledge (lokayen denuma), jokes (begal maamage weda), animals (zoo eke sawaariyak), good habits (mama honda lamayek) and songs (api sindu kiyamu) they can sing along to. The introduction to the service is trilingual, where children can choose the language they prefer, with the content being mixed from then on.

All content on the service is uploaded regularly, to provide users with maximum entertainment.

Speaking about the product, SLT-Mobitel CEO Suren J. Amarasekera said, “This is a unique product designed by Mobitel, as part of our contribution to mobile entertainment for children, as well as to improve their knowledge. Through this, we also hope to make the Mobitel connection more productive, where children could gain knowledge and educate themselves.”

SLT-Mobitel, the National MSP, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom. In January 2004, the company launched its fully fledged GSM network that is EDGE/GPRS enabled and designed to operate on dual bands. Investments committed to date in its 3G and GSM service offering, totals over US$ 200 m, and is set to increase its present 600 + base stations to 1,500 base stations by the end of the year.