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| Sri Lanka Minimum broadband speeds in 2013 |
Monitoring minimum broadband speeds
From January next year(2013), minimum broadband speeds will be monitored strictly for both fixed and mobile operators in Sri Lanka. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) has established a broadband speed standard of not lower than 70% of the speed advertised for fixed-line operators and not lower than 30% advertised for mobile operators, the TRCSL reports. The standard was established after two years of discussions and consultation with operators. The regulator plans to conduct speed tests to measure broadband performance and will publish the results.Since December 2010, broadband speed measurements have been carried out in locations confined to the Colombo area and were published in the TRCSL’s official website. It is learnt that Sri Lanka is the only country to have increased transparency in terms of operator speeds.
“Now we have enabled each broadband customer to measure his own speed from the PC. To facilitate this, we have hosted ‘an icon’ on the TRCSL website as well as on the homepage of all the operators,” he emphasized. Commenting on this, the Director General of the TRCSL, Anusha Palpita said, “One of our major obligations is to protect the rights of broadband users to ensure that subscribers are receiving a reliable and speedy broadband service at an affordable price. I believe that this speed measuring facility would help the role of regulator in the process of realizing these obligations. I’m very pleased to notice this voluntary action of service providers which reflects their genuine efforts and their readiness to accept the input of broadband subscribers in a transparent manner.” For this purpose, the TRCSL has established international servers in both the United States and Germany with a monthly maintenance cost of Rs.100,000 to provide highly accurate and reliable ‘end to end’ broadband speed measurements to both service providers and the customers.