Telecommunications in Sri Lanka

Telephone

Landlines in use: 2,678,739 Est (December, 2014)

Mobile Phones in use: 22,123,000 Est (December, 2014)

• Teledensity (Fixed Phones per 100 inhabitants) : 13.0 (December, 2014)
• Mobile Subscription per 100 people : 107 (December, 2014)

Telephone Network

Excellent domestic service in urban and semi urban areas. Inadequate service in rural and remote areas (2010), good international service (2010). The latest trend is the Fixed 4G LTE technology, because of this technology many Sri Lankans who live in rural and remote areas can now access a good telephone and broadband internet service.

Domestic

The national trunk network consists mostly of digital microwave radio relay and fiber-optic links are now in use in the Colombo City and all major cities and towns

International

Two submarine cables to India and the Maldives, One Satellite earth stations - Intelsat (Indian Ocean) (2009)

Broadband Internet access

Fixed Broadband Service Providers

Brand	Operator	Technology
Dialog	Dialog Broadband Networks (Pvt) Ltd	WiMAX, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi
Lanka Bell	Lanka Bell Limited	WiMAX, 4G LTE
SLT	Sri Lanka Telecom PLC	ADSL2+, VDSL2, 4G LTE, FTTH, Wi-Fi

Mobile Broadband Service Providers

Brand	Operator	Technology
Dialog	Dialog Axiata PLC	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, 4G LTE
Mobitel	Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, 4G LTE
Etisalat	Etisalat Lanka (Pvt) Ltd	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+
Hutch	Hutchison Telecommunications Lanka (Pvt) Ltd	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+
Airtel	Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd	GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+

Other Communication

Postal Service: Sri Lanka Post

Radio broadcast stations: AM 15, FM 50, shortwave 5

Television broadcast stations: 19 (2009)

Satellite Earth Stations located: Padukka and Colombo and review

Internet Service Providers: 10

Country code / Top-level domain: +94/LK

Telcommunications Regulatory Environment in Sri Lanka

LIRNEasia's Telecommunications Regulatory Environment (TRE) index, which summarizes stakeholders’ perception on certain TRE dimensions, provides insight into how conducive the environment is for further development and progress. The most recent survey was conducted in July 2008 in eight Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines. The tool measured seven dimensions: i) market entry; ii) access to scarce resources; iii) interconnection; iv) tariff regulation; v) anti-competitive practices; and vi) universal services; vii) quality of service, for the fixed, mobile and broadband sectors.

In Sri Lanka, the mobile sector receives higher scores than the fixed sector for all dimensions excepting interconnection. The broadband sector lags behind both the fixed and mobile sectors in all but one of the parameters (regulation of anti-competitive practices). What also emerges in the results illustrated above is that all the sectors – other than mobile sector USOs – fall below the 5.00 average performance level.

See also

• List of Sri Lanka Telephone Codes