The Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission Sri Lanka (TRCSL), Oshada Senanayake, has said that under the government’s ‘Communication to the Village National Programme’, plans are underway to provide 100% broadband coverage to ten districts before the end of the year, while it hopes to deliver islandwide coverage to the remaining rural districts by end-2022.
In a press conference, Senanayake said the regulator aims to achieve this goal by utilising the telecommunications development fees to develop infrastructure in more remote areas. The Telecommunication Fund will reportedly bear 50% of the cost of new towers that will be constructed under the government programme, he added, noting that while current deployments focus on 4G technologies they will also be 5G compatible to future-proof them.