SLT broadens rural communication with Sri Lanka Mahajana Development Foundation

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), the nation’s number one integrated communications service provider, today entered into a landmark agreement with Sri Lanka Mahajana Development Foundation, a non profit making, non governmental service organisation which has objectives to uplift the living standards of the community through various activities. SLT’s nation-wide coverage has proven its commitment to empower the rural community by providing connectivity to rural areas with the launch of its SLT Citylink CDMA network in Anuradhapura in 2005.

Under this agreement, SLT will initially provide 50,000 telephone connections to facilitate communication requirements of the members of the Sri Lanka Mahajana Development Foundation island-wide on SLT Citylink CDMA.

The Foundation has already appointed 18 district coordinators, 275 regional community leaders and 10,000 rural community leaders to promote their membership. It expects to increase the number within the next two to three years. Coordinators of the foundation aim to visit each household to promote membership, where they will also be promoting the SLT City Link CDMA to the largest network in the country.

Shoji Takahashi, CEO SLT commenting on the new project, “We are committed to providing communication facilities to every single citizen in Sri Lanka. I strongly believe the SLT Citylink CDMA service will be an important enabler in eliminating the digital divide in the country by empowering the rural community.”

Speaking on the significance of a tie up with the company, Jagath Chandra Irugalbandara, Chairman, SLMDF said, “We went through comprehensive selection process in choosing Sri Lanka Telecom, the giant. At present, SLT has the most reliable nation-wide communication backbone in Sri Lanka. We are quite confident that we can reach rural communities effectively and efficiently with this initiative.

SLT has already partnered with ICTA to provide telecommunication connectivity for Nenasala centers around the country. SchoolNet (Online education system), LEARN (Online University network), National Distance Education Network and Lanka Government Network (e-government project) are some other mega projects SLT empowers to help the Government of Sri Lanka’s efforts to eliminate the digital divide in the island. SLT maintains the island-wide network of pay-phones to facilitate especially the rural communities with telecommunication services.

Sri Lanka Telecom (www.slt.lk) is one of the country’s most valuable blue chip companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs 40 billion. Whilst NTT Communications Corporation of Japan owns a 35.2% stake in Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), 49.2% is owned by the Government of Sri Lanka and 15.3% is listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The company was also awarded an AAA (sri) rating by Fitch Ratings Lanka followed by a BB- international rating by Fitch International and Standard & Poor’s Rating Services.

SLT Group has a customer base of over two million including multinational corporations, large and small corporate, retail and domestic customers. Today, with NTT Communications of Japan as a strategic partner, SLT provides facilities and services: voice, data, video and mobile to its customers, which are unmatched in scope. These services range from domestic and international voice, advance data transmission services which include internet services on leased lines, broadband [on ADSL] and dial up, data circuits, frame relay solutions to IP services such as IP-VPN based on IP-MPLS technology, total corporate solutions of multiple services, satellite uplink services and mobile telephony through the fully owned subsidiary Mobitel.

With a view to making Sri Lanka a broadband island, SLT is in the process of introducing the necessary infrastructure in the form of NGN [Next Generation Networks] using optical fibre backbone and broadband services such as IMS, IPTV etc. SLT also provides high speed global connectivity to countries in the South Asian region through its investments in international submarine cables such as SMW3, SMW4 and the Bharat Lanka submarine cable [between India and Sri Lanka] and Dhirragu-SLT submarine cable system between the Maldives Islands and Sri Lanka. Newly incorporated SLT Hong Kong Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka Telecom, fully geared to provide services such as IP transit, IPVPN, IPLC and International voice traffic transit services to global telecom operators and corporates in Hong Kong.