Business Times

SLT subscribers forced to pay more for telephone calls: Telecom expert

Subscribers of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) are forced to pay high charges for their telephone calls without their knowledge, a Telecom industry expert warned. SLT’s call charges which excepting those of the discount band –are much more than the mobile charges, a fact revealed when comparing call charges based on recognized telecom engineering practice.

Some charges exceeds the mobile by as much as nearly 400%. It is noted that, for the benefit of the users who may be lured to remain with their current SLT package the expected bill reduction through fixed mobile substitution ranges from as high as 80% to as low as 17%, depending on the nature of usage, he said. He noted that the expected bill reduction on substitution of SLT’s fixed service peak and economy band calls with mobile is around 55%. Therefore the SLT’s plan to introduce new price packages soon to its customers is nothing but a Hobson’s choice.

He stressed the urgent need to improve capacity utilization and bring down costs to boost SLT’s revenue. The most important is arresting the decline in utilization and revenues arising from substitution of SLT’s costly peak and economic band calls by less costly mobile calls - motivated by expected attractive bill reductions of around 55% .

To deter fixed mobile substitution the SLT call charges need to be reduced to commensurate with the less costly mobile call charges The other, is boosting SLT revenues, by emulating British Telecom’s successful experience in liberalizing the bandwidth of the ubiquitous copper wire for competition in ADSL, that enabled UK to provide wideband access at affordable prices and at average speeds of nearly 6 Mb/sec. In contrast, SLT’s ADSL services are affordable to a minuscule of the Sri Lankan population at a paltry speed most of the time less than 0.5Mb/sec. he added.

Top to the page  |  E-mail  |  views[1]
SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
 
Other Business Times Articles
Kotelawala, GK depositors meet tomorrow
Selective tax holidays after the budget
French firm ‘open’ mind on Lankan fuel entry
Central Bank scrutinizes Harry J’s claims in HNB sale issue
Shell Gas deal still incomplete
PB Jayasundera to get wide administrative powers
Dust and chaos on the Galle Road
Comment - Working in the Middle East? It’s not worth it!
Feature - Potential for renewable energy in Sri Lanka
Govt. killing entrepreneurship spirit with unfair tax policies
F&G maturity default case fixed for ex-parte trial
Haycarb launches new log in new global re-positioning strategy
Sri Lanka on the map for ‘frontier’ stock markets
SL drawing a lot of foreign investment interest
Central Bank: Only a supervisor not a guarantor of deposits
National level e-waste management programme to be launched soon
Time to kick in fundamentals to the bear market
Colombo Dockyard builds second passenger ship for India
Janashakthi launches unique Sports Insurance Policy
Machinery, equipment exports see August earnings rise sharply
SriLankan launches Air Taxis
Government to formulate plan to list state entities after the budget
ICASL, ICAEW sign MOU
Only 27 of 35 finance companies are CBSL compliant
School accounts better than private sector ones
World’s largest BPO and KPO Certifications enter Sri Lanka
Hayleys launches Farmtrac 4-wheel locally
More and more companies eye the North for investment, business
Heladiv opens 10th and largest tea boutique in Beijing
Sri Lanka to tighten mobile phone regulations
MTI CEO briefs Bangladesh biz community
Fitch upholds HNB’s ‘AA-(lka)’ Stable
Investment Promotion Mission heads to Korea
JKH joins with TDG for freight forwarding
SEC ready with Share Option rules
Farmers using mobile for crop prices make more : Study
FCCISL helps 500 persons in war rehabilitation
Sri Lankan telephone directory goes electronic
CINEC awarded APAC Quality award
Virtusa supports reality TV enterprise competition
Rickmers Marine Agency Lanka gets ISO 9001 certified
One in 12 Lankans uses the Web
Dialog profits grow, cash flows improve and mobile phone subs reach 6.7 mln
Biyagama Hospital gets a facelift through Fonterra
SLT subscribers forced to pay more for telephone calls: Telecom expert
NDB Investment Bank structures largest securitisation in Sri Lanka
LEED project to help micro and small entrepreneurs in Vavuniya
Turning sand and dust into a money-spinner and a work of art
Change of stars at Burson-Marsteller

 

 
Reproduction of articles permitted when used without any alterations to contents and a link to the source page.
© Copyright 2010 | Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.Colombo. Sri Lanka. All Rights Reserved.| Site best viewed in IE ver 6.0 @ 1024 x 768 resolution