The networks using the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology will especially benefit rural areas enabling services like telemedicine and e-learning, officials said.
Sri Lanka's largest celco Dialog Telekom, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, and two other operators, Lanka Bell and Suntel, are already offering WiMAX services on the 3.5G spectrum in 375 base stations throughout the country.
The three operators have a customer base of 12,000, Kariyapperuma said.
WiMAX can provide access to difficult to reach rural sector users who otherwise have to be connected via expensive satellite connections or by laying copper cables.
WiMAX offers broadband wireless internet connectivity over long distances, sometimes over 15 kilometers, unlike Wi-Fi wireless devices that have very limited range.
It will enable people in rural areas to use services like telemedicine and a host of education services such as e-learning, Fayaz Huda of the Information Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka said.
He said telco operators might target and develop different geographic locations in the country to prevent overlapping of services that will drive costs up.
Kariyapperuma said WiMAX can be run at its optimal economic capacity on the 2.3G and 2.5G spectrums.
Sri Lanka's 2.5G spectrum was earlier used by cable television operator Comet Cable and was freed for use by others after lengthy negotiations with the TRC and an out-of-court settlement, Kariyapperuma said.
Telco experts said 2.5G spectrum provides the cheapest mobile broadband to surfers as equipment costs are cheaper than the competing 3.5G spectrum that concentrate on mainly handheld devices such as mobile phones.
"WiMAX is an open technology and is dominated by 25 chip makers. In 3G only 2-3 companies make the chips," said C S Rao, chairman WiMAX Forum India.
"To have a 30 MHz spectrum on 2.5G you can hit average speeds of 4 mega bytes per second (mbps). You can achieve peak speeds of 16 mbps on this spectrum."
Some countries are carrying out Long Term Evolution (LTE) broadband technology which works on 4G. WiMAX is also 4G technology and is the father of LTE, Rao said.
He said WiMAX technology including roaming services have already been tested in Russia, Thailand and Australia and have proven to be reliable. It already has a customer base of 480 million users.
WiMAX is three times faster and three times cheaper than current broadband services. The capital expenditure for a user is just 15 dollars, he said.
Computer chip maker Intel is a leading manufacturer of supporting hardware and software.
"Over 500 networks are up and running in over 140 countries," Naveen Chinoy, vice president Asia-Pacific, Intel said. "In many ways Sri Lanka is ahead of the game."
Kariyapperuma said the lack of sufficient international broadband (pipes) speeds due to high costs has hindered growth.
But he is confident of prices going down. "I'm not very happy about the international broadband tariffs. I agree they have to come down."
Most of the international broadband is taken up by voice calls, Rao said.
"International broadband tariff has come down 40 percent from what it was 18 months ago."
According to a study carried out by regional think-tank LIRNEasia South Asian surfers get slower and less reliable broadband speeds for every dollar spent than Western broadband users.
Despite a 35 year civil war ending just six months ago, Sri Lanka has one of the most advance telco systems in the world. It was the first to move into GSM network in South Asia, Kariyapperuma said.
Sri Lanka has the highest mobile phone penetration amongst South Asian countries. Currently there are 13 million active mobile connections spread amongst five mobile operators.
"In the last six months since the war ended mobile connections have gone up by two million," Kariyapperuma said.
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Quelle/Source: Lanka Business Online, 03.12.2009
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