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and mobile phone call rates to increase This proposal had been carefully drafted in consultation with all relevant parties and they had managed to arrive at a common consensus, Selvakumar said. In what could be described as the government's New Year bonanza to the people, Minister of Mass Communication Imtiaz Bakeer Markar announced in parliament on Monday that all mobile phone incoming calls would be free from January. Known as the 'caller party pays' (CPP) system, this change is expected to increase mobile phone penetration in the country. Selvakumar, who is heading this initiative, said that there was considerable competition between the four mobile phone operators, and this move would help increase cellular phone penetration in to the rural areas. "At the moment there are 595 sub-post offices in rural areas, which do not have any telephones. Even in the plantations sector, only 14 out of the 53 Agency post offices situated in estates have telephones." Since mobile phone operators would be able to set up much faster than fixed line operators, this move would certainly improve connectivity in the island, Selvakumar said. The move could also be categorised as a new development in infrastructure, which would help attract investors. Explaining the concept, he said, most companies had their head offices in Colombo and their factories in distant localities such as Katunayake. If a production manager needs to discuss a problem with his General Manager in Colombo, then he could talk to him for as long as he wants, at anytime, at any place with no cost to the general manager. "For heavy
users such as businessman, this would be a real cost benefit."
"With this move, we expect cellular phones to achieve a 100 percent growth in the coming year, which would be healthy for the country." Pizza
Hut gets Asia Pacific award for delivery Pacific Marketing Conference held in Singapore recently. This award was to recognize mainly the introduction of a Single Number Phone Access and was the first country in Asia to introduce the Heated Pouch for delivery and continuous improvement on product and service quality amongst many other initiatives. The award was
a significant recognition for Pizza Hut Sri Lanka amongst Asiasoft
to represent Symbols banking solutions Speaking at the licensing ceremony, Sujatha Nadesan, Managing Director of Asiasoft said that there is a great opportunity for a customer centric solution such as Symbols in the local banking industry. Already implemented by DFCC Bank, there is a market need driven by customer demands and competition for local banks to switch to newer generation solutions from the traditional systems already being, added Ramesh Nava, Senior Vice President - Asia Pacific of System Access. Symbols is a modular solution with 30 different modules in the areas of corporate lending, retail, wholesale and universal banking. The solution has also established benchmarks on IBM and Sun Solaris hardware platforms averaging transaction times as low as 1.2 seconds in an environment of 10-20 million customer accounts and varied transactions in a typical banking scenario. Headquartered in Singapore, System Access is represented through seven regional offices servicing customers in over 20 countries in the Asia Pacific region. Asiasoft is a Microsoft Certified Partner and an ISO9001 accredited consultancy specialing in software development, business consulting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions. (AA) Bodyline
celebrates ten years of service That year the company received the award for the Most Outstanding Exporter. To celebrate their service of ten years, Bodyline carried out many projects such as constructing a new dispensary for the Horana Hospital and donating a boxing ring built to international standards to Vidyaratne University College. It also recognised 24 employees for their outstanding service of 10 years and granted 16 scholarships, half of which were given to family members of employees. (TM) Maruman
appoints Thef:;llstop as sole distributor Announcing the appointment, Thef:;llstop Managing Director Lai Ming Ukwatte said it would result in widening the choice available to discerning consumers of high quality stationery products, a segment of the market that is largely untapped. "A Japanese Yen 4.5 billion company, Maruman has been dedicated to producing the finest stationery and art materials since 1920. The company's products represent decades of committed research and close attention to minute detail," she said in a statement. "As a specialist notebook maker, Maruman is possibly unrivalled." |
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