Sri Lanka strengthens its underlying telecoms infrastructure
Sri Lanka’s telecom sector spent much of 2020 strengthening its underlying infrastructure on both the domestic and regional fronts.
At home, Airtel Lanka completed the upgrade of its 3G mobile network, becoming entirely based on LTE. Dialog Axiata opened another Level 3 data centre, this time near Colombo, while Hutch Lanka completed 5G trials in partnership with ZTE, reaching speeds up to 1.8Gb/s.
Sri Lanka also took a number of steps to solidify its position as a regional telecommunications hub, with a second Maldives-Sri Lanka submarine cable coming on line, and Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) committing to be a partner in the proposed SEA-ME-WE 6 cable system which will connect South East Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe. The project is expected to be completed in 2025.