Mobitel announces extensive expansion to unveil 3G services

February 1, 2007

Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel, the national mobile service provider, announced its decision to invest in additional mobile communications infrastructure for the launch of its 3G services and to further extend its GSM capacity and coverage. Under the Stage III expansion drive the capacity will be further extended to serve an additional 750,000 subscribers with 800 new base stations and with an intelligent core network equipped with a state-of-the-art soft switch to be fully deployed before the end of 2007.

The company committed to this goal by signing a turn-key supply contract with Huawei Technologies of China, a global company in providing next generation telecommunications infrastructure network solutions. This timely endeavour by Sri Lanka Telecom Mobitel while it nears the completion of the Stage II GSM expansion is to keep in tandem with the technological advancements in the telecom industry in order to cater to the ever changing and evolving needs of mobile telephony users. The Stage III expansion drive is meant to build on both the existing voice-centric services and to significantly expand non-voice services.

With Mobitel 3G services it hopes to cater to the more sophisticated needs of the subscribers by creating unprecedented access to video calls, high speed internet, video streaming, mobile TV, music streaming and online music. The venture of traversing into 3G technology will also equip Mobitel in providing mobile broadband coverage using 3G network's HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), the latest broadband technology that enables Megabit rate mobile broadband connectivity and is envisaged to be several generations ahead of 3G forerunners allowing multiple applications compatible with mobile phones, laptops and personal computers.