Airtel Sri Lanka has been successful in delivering significant advantages to the customer through its platform of affordability with a range of innovative and cutting edge solutions. The company is geared to promote telcom as a way of life for people and also to contribute towards Sri Lankan government’s much ambitious Western megalopolis and smart city initiatives.
In an interview with Daily News Business, Airtel Sri Lanka Chief Technical Officer Praveen Kapoor shares his views on the benefits of IoT, the emerging trends in this space, opportunities, challenges and the company’s growth strategy. Excerpts of the interview.
Q:What’s the progress Airtel Sri Lanka has made since inception; How would you describe growth, presence and subscriber base?
A: We started operations in Sri Lanka in 2009 when the war was still on. Since then the company ramped up its investments in Sri Lanka.Today, our total investment in Sri Lanka has crossed US$ 450 million.That is a significant number.
We have committed to invest in new technology. With the backing of Bharti Airtel worldwide, we hope to bring in best in class efficiencies and our ability to benchmark ourselves with other big operators in the country has stood us in a good stead. We have a subscriber base close to 2.2 million in Sri Lanka and in terms of network, we cover almost 85% percent of the nation’s population through our network.
Q: Rural broadband penetration in Sri Lanka is quite low.How is Airtel going to address this issue?
A: Airtel has aggressively expanded its presence in the rural geographies and is identifying other geographies where Airtel can take broadband to the village. Airtel has moved out of Colombo to provide IT backbone to all districts.
Q: How does Airtel plan to contribute towards the government’s smart city and Western region megalopolis development projects? What are the key benefits of Internet of Things (IoT)?
A: IoT and smart city solutions can solve everyday life issues and improve the citizens’ quality of life. Population in urban areas is growing at a rapid pace and it has increased demand on resources thereby posing risks to the safely of the people as well as to the growth of nation’s economy, which means we have to protect both.
Smart City technology can help better utilise the existing resources in schools, hospitals, roads, public transportation and extend its reach to the rural areas.
Smart utility solutions and Internet of Things (IoT) can help better manage energy use, Road network, education, healthcare and many more. I believe smart city project is necessary for Sri Lanka to become a well-connected, sustainable country in the region.
To my understanding, all available infrastructure will be integrated through smart city solutions. Once the integration is done; infrastructure can be utilised to the maximum level to make intelligent decisions on what we do and what we don’t do.
With smart cities and western megalopolis development plans, the customers’ requirement for data will increase multifold, which will ultimately help boost the country’s economy. In line with the government’s vision, Airtel is also building necessary infrastructure to cater to that demand.
Q: What are the challenges faced by the telecom service providers here?
A: I think there are so many things which can be done in terms of sharing telco infrastructure. If we take spectrum allocation, it is just happening as a part of license given .But to my understanding spectrum should be given to the company who is leading it. Today we are given this as a part of our license. I think it should be given as part of requirement.
In terms of infrastructure sharing, we are only given the space on the tower; when sharing happens, the entire infrastructure should be given as a part of sharing. This will ultimately drive down the cost of capital assets and infrastructure deployed by the telco operator, in the mean time all the efficiencies will be brought in.
Q: What is the concept behind smart cache technology and how is it helping Airtel and consumers?
A: With island wide coverage, the Airtel network is now 40% faster and smarter with our all new smart cache technology that ensures uninterrupted network speeds. This will ensure that consumers experience high speed and seamless access to Internet Services. Basically it improves data downloading by almost 40%. This was introduced in line with our company’s strategy where we want to be more innovative and engage Sri Lankan youth into exploring new dimensions of technology.
Q: Any Investments in Data side? Is there a potential for data in the local market?
A: We believe that the way forward in this country would be data which is a big differentiation between us and the competitors, where our data services are very attractive in terms of pricing and speed.
We are at the cusp of going into the next phase of development growth in telecommunication, which is largely driven by data and Airtel will be on the forefront of data explosion and most of our future investments in Sri Lanka will be on data services.
We will invest more on data technology particularly best in class data technology by bringing affordability to the customers. Our data speed and data rates are perhaps the best in class of the world and Sri Lanka is also considered as one of the affordable data markets in the world.
Q: Do you have any plans to introduce 4G LTE to Sri Lanka now?
A: We see enough opportunities in 3G and I think 3G can meet our current demand.
Q: What are Airtel's future investment plans in Sri Lanka?
A: The company has plans to invest Rs 2 billion this year to increase 3G penetration up to 100% from the present 75% and also to broaden the range of product and services that we offer. Now, we cover almost 75% population with 3G and 85% population through our network. Airtel will continue to invest in this area as we want to offer 3G services to rural areas as well.
Source: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=2016/09/08/business/92601