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SLT
rolls out first phase of
broadband access plan
Sri
Lanka Telecom started rolling out the first phase of its plan to
innovative broadband access technologies for residential and business
customers.
ADSL
or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line is essentially a continuously
open data line to an Internet service provider that works over
conventional telephone lines. In addition it allows the ability to
transfer a higher rate of data over voice/data lines that exist in
every home due to a new modulation technology called Discrete Multi
Tone (DMT) which facilitates the transmission of high speed data. Thus
ADSL makes it possible to simultaneously access normal telephone
services and Broadband Internet such as audio and video over a SLT
customer's existing telephone lines. Advantages of its services are an
"always- on" connection, so there's no waiting to log on,
unlimited access with no time restrictions at a flat monthly fee,
flexibility to use the phone and surf the Internet at the same time,
increased and augmented access to a range of content and service
providers, and a higher speed which is more than 30 times faster than
a normal dial up connection.
In
conventional Internet browsing, download and upload streams are
symmetric, and hence consumes an equal amount of bandwidth. But the
nature of internet browsing requires bigger bandwidth for downloading
and smaller bandwidth for uploading, basing upload stream carries only
internet users request to the web server whist download streams bring
the requested content to the user. ADSL technology provides users with
the required capabilities necessary for optimal net browsing. It
provides higher download speed than upload speed from ADSL Home
Express Package, 512 Kbps download /128 Kbps upload and ADSL Office
Express Package, 2 Mbps download/512 Kbps upload.
ADSL
has spread out since its initial adoption as an intensive ADSL test
run, which was carried out by SLT in April 2002 to determine the
technical feasibility of this service. The thorough and exhaustive
testing process lasted a year with the hypothesis reaffirming SLT's
confidence in ADSL and its popularity among test users, which resulted
in its launch to certain key exchanges first. These areas currently
comprise 80% of Sri Lanka's Internet traffic and are a logical
starting point in a network that will soon encompass the entirety of
the island.
With
the efforts of strategic partners such as Cisco and Alcatel, companies
at the top of their field specializing in Internet protocol, switching
and routing (Cisco) and well known for effectively deploying DSL
services (Alcatel), SLT subscribers now have an added guarantee that
the quality of the service offered to them is unimpeachable.
Subscribers to the ADSL service also have SLT's commitment with regard
to security and reliability as the company has adopted state of the
art technologies for access authentication and data encryption to
protect all communications. The SLT network infrastructure utilizes
fiber optics at the IP backbone level which has proven much more
dependable than previous cable options while using copper cables of
very high standard at an individual subscriber level so that costs
remain low for subscribers with no rewiring necessary for existing
phone subscribers.
Initially
ADSL is available to homes and companies in Colombo and Greater
Colombo, with Katunayake being next in the rollout plan. Each
connection will take around two weeks to set up with a one time fee of
Rs. 2000 for connection. An ADSL modem costing a minimum of Rs.9500
can be purchased at any SLT Teleshop. After the initial connection
there will be a flat monthly fee starting at Rs. 2250 for ADSL Home
Express Package and Rs. 6750 for ADSL Office Express Package. This is
separate from the telephone bill for normal telephone calls (voice)
taken by the customer.
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