Dialog poised to deliver CDMA technology

Following the record US $ 300 m investment in telecom infrastructure:

Hiran H. Senewiratne

Mobile phones: Sri Lanka's premier mobile phone service provider, Dialog Telekom Limited is soon to commence the provision of fixed telephony services based Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), technology to the country, sources said.

A fully owned subsidiary of Dialog Telekom Limited, Dialog Broadband Networks Limited (DBN) will offer the CDMA, service in a few weeks time, which is also licensed by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, Dialog, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya said.

"There was a spectrum delay to introduce CDMA service to the country and now it had been cleared to provide CDMA phones to the market," Dr Wijayasuriya said at the signing of the Board of Investment (BoI) agreement with Dialog Telecom to invest US$ 300 million for telecommunication infrastructure projects.

These investment agreements were signed under the patronage of the Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Dr. Sarath Amunugama. The Investment agreements were signed by the Chairman of Dialog Telekom Limited, Tan Sri Dato'Ir Muhammad Radzi bin Haji Mansor and Chairman, BoI, Dhammika Perera.

This Rs. 33 billion (US$ 300 million) investment would be for the Sri Lanka's largest telecommunication infrastructure investment, targeted at large scale expansion of services across all regions of the country.

This associated infrastructure investment would include expansion of the company's GSM and 3G mobile networks. A substantial portion of the total investment pledged by the Dialog Group will also be directed at fixed line telephony and Broadband services via Dialog Broadband Networks (Pvt) and Digital Television Broadcast services via Asset Media (Pvt) Ltd., respectively.

The investment in DBN will be directed towards the growth of CDMA based Rural Fixed Telecommunication infrastructure developments as well, Dr. Wijayasuriya said. It will also introduce state-of-the-art Value Added Services and the establishment of broadband transmission network across the island based on Fibre Optic and Microwave transmission technologies.

The company will also make substantial investments in the provision of international Bandwith to Sri Lanka's ICT sector via the SeMeWe4 submarine cable.

Chairman Dialog Telekom Limited, Tan Sri Dato'Ir Muhammad Radzi bin Haji Mansor said that this US$ 300 million investment brings Dialog's total commitment of the telecom sector in Sri Lanka to over US$ 800 million and emphasized their commitment to and confidence in the Sri Lankan market.

"We are grateful to the investor friendly policies of the Sri Lankan Government and consider Sri Lanka to be one of our most compelling success stories outside Malaysia," Tan Sri Dato' Ir Muhammad Radzi said.

He said that as South Asia's first quadruple player, Dialog Telekom has already delivered impressive results, and with this additional investment they intend to fulfill their objective of playing an even bigger role in not just the country's telecommunication landscape but also in terms of the delivery of the state-of-the-art ICT and Digital TV services, he said.

Minister Amunugama said that more than 30 per cent of the population owns some kind of telephone. Therefore it has a lot of room for development covering all wider segments of the population.

He said that public/private sector partnerships in telecommunication had improved remarkably during the last few years.

The subscriber network of the telecommunications sector grew by 59 per cent in 2006 following the 44 per cent growth in 2005, benefiting from the introduction of the new technology.

The fixed access network grew by 52 per cent largely due to expansion in the wireless network with CDMA technology. Rapid expansion of mobile networks and CDMA based wireless networks in rural areas helped to reduce the urban, rural telecommunication disparity.