FUTURE OF SRI LANKAN
TELECOMMUNICATION
INDUSTRY
Except the person to person talking and paper publications, almost every
communication medium has become a telecommunication medium.
H
ave you ever thought how the world could have been
Telecommunication refers to the exchange of information by
if people were unable to communicate with each
electronic and electrical means over a considerable distance. In
other, without any method of letting each other know
the present world except the person to person talking and paper
what’s on their minds. Will it be the same as it is now?
publications, almost every communication medium has become
Will you be the same person as you are now?
a telecommunication medium.
Humans are social animals. Human lives depend on other
It is obvious that telecommunication is playing a major part
humans. Infants are unable to look after themselves. Humans
in the development of the world and our country. Having a
will survive only with the help of other humans. From the very
sense about where the telecommunications sector is heading
beginning of mankind humans have always tried to connect
is important to engineers as well as other citizens. Future of Sri
with other humans. It is a necessity for their existence. Therefore
Lankan telecommunication cannot be sensed just by looking at
communication is one of the prime factors which determine the
its technical background. It has to be looked from the economic
development of a civilization.
aspects as well.
From smoke signals, drumming and carrier pigeons, communica-
Sri Lanka’s telecommunication sector as of Dec 2014 consists
tion has come a long way. With the development of electrical
of three fixed access telephone service operators, five mobile
and electronic engineering, telecommunication was introduced.
phone service operators and fifteen data communication and
ISPs (Internet Service Providers). Our
country has 2,678,739 fixed phones
and
22,123,000
Cellular
Mobile
Subscribers. There are 567,601 fixed
Broadband subscriber sand Internet &
Email Broadband Subscribers-Mobile
are 2,790,195. Interstingly number of
Mobile Subscription per 100 people is
107. This suggests that there are more
mobile phones in operation than the
population.
Figure 1: Number of Fixed Access
Subscribers vs. year in Sri Lanka
Source: Telecommunications Regulatory
Commission of Sri Lanka- Statistics December
2014
24
Gauge Newsletter
University of Peradeniya