Bharti Airtel Lanka secures spectrum band from Sri Lanka’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission
Bharti Airtel Lanka (Airtel Lanka) has reportedly announced that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has allocated 5MHz of the 900MHz spectrum band to the company.
The local media has reported that the allocation was on an “administrative basis” and based on a pre-published criteria.
The criteria mentioned according to the local media among other things, “in order to create a level playing field for all four Mobile Operators every operator shall have equal amount of spectrum at all possible times in such economical bands. Therefore, during evaluation of applications the prominence will be given to minimise unequal distribution of radio frequency spectrum (if any) within the above band.”
The criteria has further mentioned that the “evaluation will be based on to guarantee interference free spectrum.”
“I would like to thank the TRCSL for taking an approach to create a level playing field, which ultimately benefits the end consumer. We have been awarded the spectrum through a transparent process and have already begun using the allocated frequency after paying the required fee to use this 5MHz of spectrum which had been determined on a formula that was applied to all other operators,” Airtel Lanka Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Jinesh Hegde has been quoted as saying in the local media.
Media reports further state the new spectrum will result in wider coverage that would in turn provide Airtel users with an enhanced voice and data experience.
Bharti Airtel Lanka (Airtel Lanka) commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on 12 January 2009 as a project under the Board of Investment (BOI) of Sri Lanka and was the fastest operator to reach 1 million customers in the country.
With its network footprint panned out across the nation and capturing strategic ranking positions in various areas in less than three years of operations, Airtel has emerged as Sri Lanka’s fastest expanding network, thus ensuring coverage across the whole island.
OSL take:
ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors are two areas that have become business hotspots in Sri Lanka. With the policy of transforming Sri Lanka in to an e-economy, the government of Sri Lanka has given much prominence to open up the country’s ICT and digital infrastructure development sectors to foreign businesses/investors.
| Article Code : | VBS/AT/20191118/Z_6 |