CDMA boosts SLT’s fixed line growth

Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has reported that its fixed line customer base increased from 1.18 million at the end of 2006 to 1.43 million at the end of December 2007. The partially state-owned telco connected 224,000 net new fixed-wireless CDMA telephone users in the twelve month period to raise its total to 493,000 subscribers. The take-up of CDMA services was helped by a cut in the connection charge by nearly a third in May 2007, as well as the introduction of the low-budget Vplus package for voice-only customers in November, and the introduction of a pre-paid option in December. The price reductions had the overall effect of reducing revenues from new CDMA connections by 11% year-on-year to LKR3.4 billion (USD32 million). By the end of 2007 SLT also had more than 54,000 ADSL customers and 88,000 post-paid dial-up internet customers.