Sri Lanka's Dialog Telekom has signed an investment agreement with the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BoI) to invest a further US$300 million in the country's Telecommunications and Media sectors within the next 2 years.
The investment will be targeted at large scale expansion of services across all regions of Sri Lanka. Associated infrastructure investments would include expansion of the company's GSM and 3G mobile networks, introduction of Value Added Services and the establishment of Broadband transmission networks across the island based on Fibre Optic and Microwave transmission technologies. The Company will also make substantial investments in the provision of International Bandwidth to Sri Lanka's ICT sector via the SeMeWe4 submarine cable. Dialog will also make investments in Customer Service and other support infrastructures with a view to expanding its network of support centres across Sri Lanka.
A substantial portion of the total investment pledged by the Dialog Group will be directed at fixed line Telephony and Broadband services via Dialog Broadband Networks (DBN), and Digital Television Broadcast services via Asset Media, respectively.
The investments in DBN will be directed towards the growth of CDMA based Rural Fixed Telecommunications Infrastructure, WiMax based wireless broadband infrastructure and for the deployment of a National Fibre Optic backbone.
Investments in Asset Media will be targeted at expansion of its Digital Satellite TV services and for the deployment of Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) infrastructure in Sri Lanka.
Expressing his thoughts on the investment, Chairman of Dialog Telekom (and Telekom Malaysia), Tan Sri Dato' Ir Muhammad Radzi said "This investment brings Dialog's total commitment to the Telco sector in Sri Lanka to over US$800 million, and emphasizes our commitment to, and confidence in, the Sri Lankan market. We are grateful to the investor friendly policies of the Sri Lankan Government, and consider Sri Lanka to be one of our most compelling success stories outside Malaysia. As South Asia's first quadruple player, Dialog Telekom has already delivered impressive results, and with this additional investment we intend to fulfill our objective of playing an even bigger role in not just the country's telecommunication landscape, but also in terms of the delivery of state of the art ICT (Information and Communications Technology) and Digital TV services"."
Posted to the site on 11th June 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/24271.php