Telecommunications in Sri Lanka

Telecommunications in Sri Lanka commenced in 1858 after the first telegraphic circuit between Colombo and Galle was commenced. The sector continues to grow in the modern times.

Telephone

Source:
Landlines in use: 3,838,291
Mobile Phones in use: 30,824,128

Teledensity : 12.9
Mobile Subscription per 100 people : 135

Telephone Network

Excellent domestic service in urban and semi urban areas. Inadequate service in rural and remote areas, good international service. The latest trend is the Fixed 4G LTE and 5G technologies, because of this technology many Sri Lankans who live in rural and remote areas can now access a good telephone and broadband internet service.

Domestic

The national trunk network consists mostly of digital microwave radio relay and fiber-optic links are now in use in the Colombo City and all major cities and towns

International

Two submarine cables to India and the Maldives; one Satellite earth stations - Intelsat

Broadband Internet access

Fixed Broadband Service Providers

Operator	Technology
Dialog	WiMAX, LTE TDD, VoLTE, FTTH, Wi-Fi
SLTMobitel	ADSL2+, VDSL2, LTE TDD, VoLTE, FTTH, Wi-Fi

Mobile Broadband Service Providers

Operator	Technology
Dialog	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, LTE FDD, LTE-A, VoLTE, VoWiFi, 5G, VoNR
Hutch	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, LTE FDD, VoLTE, 5G
SLTMobitel	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, LTE FDD, LTE-A, VoLTE, VoWiFi, 5G,VoNR

Internet

The history of the internet in Sri Lanka began with the launch of the Lanka Education and Research Network in 1992. The network was only made available to educational and research communities. In the 1985/1986 period with the use of an old TRS 80 model which ran Xenix, computer engineers and scholars were able to demonstrate a remote login from University of Moratuwa which connected a computer in University of Colombo for the first time.

Fixed Broadband Subscriptions : 1,810,657
Mobile Broadband Subscriptions : 11,684,649

Internet Speed

4G LTE Mobile Broadband : Download : 21.57 Mbit/s to 300 Mbit/s Upload : 10.23 Mbit/s to 45 Mbit/s
4G LTE Fixed Broadband : Download : 28.65 Mbit/s to 150 Mbit/s Upload : 15.41 Mbit/s to 30 Mbit/s
Fiber Optics : Download : 100 Mbit/s to 1000 Mbit/s Upload : 50 Mbit/s to 500 Mbit/s data capped

Other Communication

Postal Service: Sri Lanka Post
Radio broadcast stations: AM 15, FM 54, SW 5
Television broadcast stations: 19
Satellite Earth Stations located: Padukka and Colombo
Internet service providers: 9
Country code / Top-level domain: +94/LK

Telecommunications Regulatory Environment in Sri Lanka

LIRNEasia's Telecommunications Regulatory Environment market entry; ii) access to scarce resources; iii) interconnection; iv) tariff regulation; v) anti-competitive practices; and vi) universal services; vii) quality of service, for the fixed, mobile and broadband sectors.
In Sri Lanka, the mobile sector receives higher scores than the fixed sector for all dimensions excepting interconnection. The broadband sector lags behind both the fixed and mobile sectors in all but one of the parameters. What also emerges in the
results illustrated above is that all the sectors – other than mobile sector USOs – fall below the 5.00 average performance level.

Telecommunication research in Sri Lanka

Centre for Telecommunication Research is a research-based institute at the Sri Lanka Technological Campus to carry out innovative, collaborative and industry-sponsored research works in wireless communications and networking. Research activities at the CTR, both fundamental and applied, mainly focus on technologies related to the physical, data-link and network layers of communication systems, and optical communication.

Product

Sri Lanka initiated to produce telecommunication, specially smartphones with the collaboration of foreign companies that already in the leading market.