Sri Lanka Telco Mobitel Invests $60mn on LTE, the Latest Standard in Mobile Network Technology

01st May 2011, www.thebottomline.lk

Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel, the National Mobile Telecom Service Provider, announced on Friday that it has signed a BOI agreement to trial and deploy a LTE (Long Term Evolution) Network for the first time in Sri Lanka.

This will be part of the company’s network expansion project and will enable Mobitel to import/purchase (locally) project-related items free of customs duty.

Mobitel has committed an investment of approximately US$ 60m in its latest network expansion, adding 1000 LTE capable radio base stations to the existing network infrastructure.

With this, the company’s investments committed to date in its LTE/3.5G/2.5G networks and service offerings amount to over US$ 400m.

“Technology change is a key determinant of a country’s economic growth and therefore, the introduction of LTE Network is expected to drive growth in the telecommunication sector as well as improve competitiveness and growth in several other economic sectors heavily depended on infocom” said, Jayampathi Bandaranayake, Chairman BOI of Sri Lanka. “We are happy to support Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel in its endeavour to provide the latest ICT technologies which is sure to catalyze national development”.

LTE is the latest standard in the mobile network technology evolution after GSM/EDGE and 3.5G/HSPA network technologies, and Mobitel is gearing towards demonstrating broadband speeds nearing 100Mbps in downlink and 50Mbps in uplink, using this LTE technology when the spectrum is available.

Anusha Palpita, the Director General of Telecommunications said “TRCSL is committed to assist all the telecommunication operators in Sri Lanka to develop world-class telecommunication network facilities in the country. The spectrum allocation for the commercial operation of LTE will soon be finalised where the operators will be able to launch nationwide enhanced ICT infrastructure to benefit all businesses and consumers in Sri Lanka through this latest evolution in mobile broadband technology.”

Nimal Welgama, Chairman Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel said, “Harnessing the power of ICT to its fullest potential will be the key in realising hyper exponential pace of growth which is needed to build our nation and to do so rapidly. This requires next generation ICT available and affordable to the citizens of our country which will help eventually realise the President’s vision of elevating the e-literacy rate in Sri Lanka. In this regard, this investment on the latest LTE infrastructure will be a significant step towards driving unparalleled growth to propel our country forward.”

ZTE corporation of China was selected by Mobitel as its technology partner to deploy this state-of-the-art LTE ready Next-Generation-Network.

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