SLT’s new ADSL lines suspended

Sri Lanka’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) has asked Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) to suspend issuing new ADSL lines until its services are upgraded, acting on subscriber complaints of poor quality connections. The regulator’s director General Kanchana Ratwatte told The Sunday Times that the request was made to SLT last week to stop issuing new ADSL lines, after testing determined that service quality had ‘deteriorated drastically over the last month or so.’ Ratwatte said the LKR1000 (USD9) entry level DSL package offered by the incumbent telco was becoming increasingly popular, but the operator had not completed the necessary international backbone improvements to cope with demand. He stated that: ‘it is not an expensive process and SLT has already initiated action and they wanted a fortnight from the first of July [to finish upgrades].’