Harin Fernando, Minister of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure rang an alarm bell on Monday for Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) slamming its complacency and sluggishness in getting things done, and went on to warn that a rival semi-government telecom company would be formed if the worst came to worst.
"SLT is excessively unionized and getting things done productively is very difficult. 48% of SLT's operational expenses constitute employees' salaries. For Dialog, this figure is only 7%. Aware of this situation, I haven't given a single job for anyone in the SLT. SLT employees apparently feel too complacent with the monopoly they enjoy. Although SLT comes under my purview, I have told them that they have to fall in line or otherwise a new semi-government ICT company will have to be established", the minister said.
But in the next breath the minister said that SLT chairman is a chartered accountant and SLT Group CEO is a well-qualified engineer in whom he has faith for a turnaround.
The minister made these comments at Q&A session with the media after the first Sri Lanka National Broadband Forum-2016 (themed 'a Better Connected Sri Lanka') was held at the Hilton Colombo. The event was co-hosted by the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Infrastructure and Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), which was co-organized by Huawei.
SLT’s monopoly status in the high capex fibre network space and the last mile fibre optic connections are thanks to government control via a 49.5% stake in the company.
Referring to e-government services, the minister said," It has been accounted that a sum of US$ 2 million a day is wasted in the absence of a proper e-government portal. Anomalies in pension payments, Customs revenues, bureaucratic procedures etc. lead to this figure. By 2017, we will have streamlined government services online. However, as a result of it, no-one will lose their jobs. Instead, there will be more jobs in the ICT sector. So it will be a matter of acquiring new skills to fill those jobs".
The minister further said,"The telecommunication industry of the country has shown significant improvement over the recent years as a new era of rapid worldwide development has dawned on the global broadband industry. However, there are challenges on the way. 250 WIFI sites have been commissioned in the country, but they are not fully accessible to everyone. For example, SLT doesn't allow a Dialog subscriber to connect to the WIFI within their zone and Dialog does the same thing in turn. After identifying this issue, we got a new single portal developed. Now all five operators; SLT, Dialog, Lanka Com, Lanka Bell and Mobitel have agreed to provide their services through this portal. By November, We will be able to have 400 WIFI sites up and running in the country allowing ready access to any subscriber".
According to Ovum’s research, Sri Lanka trails leading markets such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, where both DSL and FTTH penetration rates are far higher.. Comparatively, fixed-broadband household penetration remains low, with DSL penetration of 10.3% at the end of 2015. Low household penetration and the lack of a strong FTTH market correlates closely to Sri Lanka's lower ranking in terms of average download speeds.
Wang Shunli, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Sri Lanka said, "Huawei began its operations in Sri Lanka in 2005. We cooperated with local operators to achieve one of the fast growing market in Southern Asia, with a 10-year CAGR of 17.3% and 44.4% in mobile and fixed broadband sectors, and today, serving 15 million Sri Lanka’s citizens." Huawei, as the global leading ICT solution provider, is very glad to share our knowledge, solutions and experience and to face the ICT development challenge together".
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Sanath Nanayakkare
Quelle/Source: The Island, 09.08.2016
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