Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) – Sri Lanka’s national telecommunications provider - launched SLT Citylink CDMA network in Anuradhapura. The launch comes in the wake of SLT’s commitment to successfully implement the largest CDMA network in rural areas.

The Anuradhapura launch is the first in a series of the SLT Citylink network roll-out plan, which will be concentrating on providing connectivity to Sri Lanka’s rural communities. SLT Citylink would connect villages and rural areas to all the cities of Sri Lanka, covering the whole country through an integrated network. 

Mr. Shuhei Anan, CEO of SLT said “We are committed to providing communication facilities to every single person in Sri Lanka. People in rural areas who prior to this had no access to any form of communication will now be able to obtain a phone without delay. We hope to provide SLT Citylink to the entire island by the end of the year “

SLT has been dedicated to rural empowerment, always committed to fulfilling the needs of the rural masses. The Anuradhapura launch is the beginning of achieving this long - term goal.  SLT’s mission for Sri Lanka is to provide connectivity to all people, be it urban or rural with the ability to communicate through the basic facility of telephony.

CDMA is a wireless access technology which will allow SLT to roll-out a network which is faster. An added advantage of this technology is that it could also be used to provide internet and other value added services.

Superior coverage and connectivity -

Customer groups such as government offices, schools, sub-post offices, religious institutions will be primarily benefited from this new service. SLT will also provide more Public Telephones for the use of rural communities’ with steps being taken to ensure high quality of coverage through SLT Citylink including the North and East.

The entire SLT Citylink network will be leveraged by SLT’s national backbone network and its extensive resources. As part of the CDMA offering, SLT will provide strong service guarantees including maintenance and other supporting services to protect against service interruptions. Hence, superior quality and the widest reach will be the differentiators of SLT Citylink from the other CDMA services available in the market.

SLT Citylink roll-out -

The SLT Citylink roll-out plan will be executed in three phases, with each catering to a capacity of 150,000 customers a year. The first phase of the network plan which is being deployed presently, will result in covering approximately 90% of the entire geography of Sri Lanka. The island will be well covered through the installation of 116 antenna tower sites (Base Transmitting Stations) to cater to those customers who were previously unserved.

SLT has planned to invest approximately SL Rs.1.5 Billion from its own generated revenues towards the construction of the SLT Citylink network during the first phase of the roll- out plan,

Value Added Services -

The new SLT Citylink service will enable rural customers to subscribe new value added services. These services include SMS (Short Message Service), VMS (Voice Mail Service), Internet Access, Data service and CLI (Calling Line Identification Presentation). In addition to these services, SLT also hopes to introduce other advanced services such as Free-Phone Service,  CNI (Calling Name Identification Presentation) and CRBT (Colour Ring Back Tone)

Sri Lanka Telecom (www.slt.lk) Sri Lanka Telecom is one of the country’s most vital utility companies with an annual turnover in excess of Rs.29.5 billion. The group company has a customer base of over one million including multinational corporations, large and small corporates, retail and domestic customers. Today with NTT of Japan as a strategic partner, SLT provides facilities and services to its customers, which are unmatched in scope. These services range from domestic and international voice, advance data transmission services which include internet services on leased lines, broadband [on ADSL] and dial up, data circuits, frame relay solutions, to IP based services such as IP-VPN, total solutions of combination of multiple services, satellite uplink services and mobile telephony through its fully owned subsidiary Mobitel .The company was also awarded a AAA (sri) rating by Fitch Ratings Lanka followed by a B+ international rating by Fitch International and Standard & Poor’s.