Information Technology in Sri Lanka

Telecommunications Infrastructure in Sri Lanka

Telephone availability in Sri Lanka is poor with waiting lists running into years in some areas. Most of the telephone exchanges use archaic technology, creating congestion at peak hours. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka estimates Sri Lanka's phone density at 0.93 per 100 people for a population of 18 million and with demand for fixed phones at nearly 282,000.

Sri Lanka allowed cellular phones in 1989 after it realized that was the quickest way to provide phones on the island. The island's cellular phone market is growing at 10% to 12% a month. In 1994 the number of cellular phones increased from 3,000 to 23,000 at year end, according to cellular phone firms. Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) planned to install another 275,000 telephone lines, especially in rural areas, by the end of 1995. Analysts say this was far below the earlier target of 500,000 by that year and 800,000 by 2000. Foreign direct investment is urgently needed to help build the telecommunications infrastructure. The state-owned Sri Lanka Telecom, which now has a monopoly on land lines, is unable to expand its network fast enough due to lack of funds. The government plans to invest almost $600 million to improve telecommunications and add 385,600 lines to its existing network of 181,000 fixed lines by 1998. The Sri Lankan government recently unveiled plans for a a major telecommunications development package.

Due to the heavy public investment made in this sector during the last five years, Sri Lanka Telecom has expanded and modernised its service by replacing outdated switching systems and cable networks with modern and powerful digital switching systems. As a result, the capacity of exchanges and the number of direct telephone lines increased sharply and the quality of telephone service has substantially improved since 1993.

The country has started to privatize Telecom services in a bid to improve the telecommunication infrastructure. Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and the Development Finance Corp of Ceylon have won the tender to restructure Sri Lanka's telecommunications industry. The goals are to initially privatize at least 20 percent of Sri Lanka Telecom. The privatization trend should help in improving the telecommunication infrastructure in Sri Lanka.

Submarine cables extend from Sri Lanka to Indonesia and Djibouti. Currently there are two INTELSAT earth stations over Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. The state owned Ceylinco, has teamed up with COMSAT to Launch Sri Lanka's first satellite services network. The project, which envisages linking Sri Lankan offices and even homes to multiple sources of information via satellite, will be the island's first network to use satellite exclusively, say its promoters, Ceycom Global Communication Ltd., a collaboration of the Ceylinco Group and Comsat Corporation, the major shareholder of the global INMARSAT & INTELSAT satellite networks.

A Rs. 2 billion (US$ 40 m) initial investment, the Ceycom network has promised to provide, in addition to the traditional needs of data and image transmission and Internet services, an exciting array of new applications such as distance education, tele-medicine, video conferencing, private networks and mobile data services will catapult Sri Lanka into a new age of information technology.

US telecom giant, MCI Communications has started commercial service on its TAT-12 fibre optic cable between the USA and Europe and with the system in place MCI can now offer additional fibre optic connectivity to Sri Lanka, Slovakia and Hungary. The TAT-12 is owned by a consortium of over 50 telecommunications carriers from 38 countries and spans 6,500 km in two optical pairs for 300,000 two-way channels.

There are four firms which operate cellular services in Sri Lanka - - MTN Networks (Pvt) Ltd, a joint venture between Telekom Malaysia and Sri Lanka's Maharaja Organization conglomerate, Celltel, Mobitel and Call Link. There are a estimated 30,000 cellular phones on the island.

Ceylinco Group's new project, using a VSAT-based global communications system in cooperation with COMSAT, USA should improve the telecommunications infrastructure of Sri Lanka, and do much to expedite the economic situation in the country.

Internet Activity in Sri Lanka

A joint venture has taken advantage of economic growth to make Sri Lanka the latest destination on the information superhighway. The information superhighwayrelentless Asian push has continues in Sri Lanka--the latest access ramp has been set up by the newly formed Sri Lanka Internet Services Ltd. (LISL). Offering low-cost Internet connectivity and 즲iends and family electronic mailo, and from within Sri Lanka, LISL hopes to take advantage of recent economic growth to encourage commercial use of the Internet. According to Mr. Samaratunga, the systems design manager at LISL, the project came about when US Vice President Al Gore and the past prime minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wikremesinghe, came to an agreement for more cordial relationships between the two countries. However, LISL is not a government organization.(List of Internet service providers in Sri Lanka)

LISL began with a database service, and received technical help from its United States venture partner, International Internet Services, Inc. Three Sri Lankan companies also fund the venture: Lanka Ventures, Central Finance and Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon.

A connection to the Internet is made through a 64-Kb/second line leased from Sri Lanka Telecom. It is not a quality service, and the company is planning to change its connection. A TI connection to the Internet has been ruled out for now because it would cost LISL about Rs. 1 million a year ($21,000). Currently, LISL has about 50 customers, or connections and hope to increase their connection coverage. LISL offers the following services like World-wide e-mail connectivity, International store-and-forward fax, and other Internet systems such as FTP (file transfer protocol) Telenet, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, Jughead, On-line merchandising, Hotel and Air Line reservations and On-line video conferencing.

A registering fee of Rs.5,000($100) will get a user a 2,400-baud modem, 쌡nka Internet E-mailail software with a built in English/Sinhala/Tamil-language text-editor, 24-hour customer support and unlimited modem access to the Lanka Internet Network Operating Center located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A monthly fee of Rs.1,500 ($30) allows users to send 100 messages units internationally each month. Additional usage costs Rs.1.50 ($0.03) per local message unit and Rs.15 per international message unit. These prices are comparatively high to the current US Internet service average of $15-20 per month for unlimited access to the Internet and regular telephone rates for e-mail.

Global Enterprise Services (GES) also provides Internet gateway for Sri Lankanetworks--and to India, Japan, Peru, Singapore and Venezuela. GES is an international provider of Internet servicers and internetworking solutions for individuals, corporations, governments and academic organizations.

Sri Lanka Telecom, which is to be privatized, is planning to install a Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) while at the same time upgrading its mainframe computers.

Currently, most of the Internet usage lies mainly in the commercial sector. It is my belief that by the turn of the century more and more individuals will start getting hooked onto the Net as charges lower with increasing foreign competition. Early this year (1996) Sri Lanka has placed its business yellow pagesn the Internet World Wide Web under the Lanka Business Web branding.

IT Usage in Sri Lanka

Historically, basic business transactions and governments drove the information technology industry. Today, foreign firms who want a piece of the emerging markets pie, domestic businesses such as the Sri Lanka Stock Exchange, and the general learned populous who simply want to be on the information highway and need basic phone capabilities drive the telecommunications industry. During the past five year period productive sectors like agriculture, industry, trade and commerce have developed placing a greater demand on hi-tech information services. Especially the fast growing number one trade export industry in the country, the garment industry. Sri Lanka is earmarked to be the next India or Singapore, but to get there it needs a supporting infrastructure that is attractive to international businesses.

Currently very few households have personal computers let alone televisions. In 1992 there were 50 televisions per 1,000 population. Sri Lanka has no cable television as yet and has three television channels that transmit mainly in the evening hours. However, growing use and need of telephones, as well as the desire to access computer networks and the Internet, will mean the country will need a million telephone lines by the end of the century, analysts say.
Since Sri Lanka has to link its telecommunications network with other countries it is very important to have equipment and network which are compatible with the advanced telecommunications network of these countries.
Major Customers:

As Sri Lanka inches its way towards its stated goal of becoming South Asia business hub, the country businesses - from textile to telecommunications firms - are embracing information technology in a cautious but determined way.

1. The Government
Air Lanka
In late April 1994 Air Lanka, Sri Lankastate-owned air line service signed up to use CargoluxCHAMP Cargohost computer system. The CHAMP (Cargo Handling and Management Planning) system will manage all cargo loading and management functions for Air Lanka around the world putting the company in the cutting edge of air line service and superior customer service. CHAMP has a wide range of functions including cargo revenue accounting, operations analysis, shipment planning and load update status.

Colombo Stock Exchange
The multimillion dollar contract awarded by the CSE to install a trading system offering global access is a good indication of the growth potential of Sri Lankavibrant information technology sector. The system will be installed by the authorized dealers for Sun Microsystems in Sri Lanka. Once installed, the CSE will become the worldfirst exchange to have such a system, offering global access to shares for investors whether they be in Hong Kong or London via a fully open platform which will be plugged into the Internet. The contract is estimated to be worth US$2-3 million.

The Daily News
Sri Lankalargest circulation newspaper the Daily News went on-line even before dailies in Hong Kong got hooked on to the global network.

2. Private Sector
The private sector participation in the telecommunications industry has opened the door to competition and technological advance. Accordingly, a number of private operators have been granted licenses to provide some of the basic value added services to Sri Lanka. The participation of the private sector in managing the provision of the value added and data services has recently shown marked improvement. At present, five types of value added services are being provided by the private sector - Radio Paging Services, Cellular Mobile Telephone, Pay Phone, Trunk Telecommunications Network and Mobile Trunking Radio Network

There are a lot of qualified university graduates in the computer field, but they are not being trained in a specific part of the industry that will make them professionals in that sector. Most of them have plenty of theoretical knowledge, but lack practical knowledge. In the major cities computer literacy is high, and many young people are well aware of latest upgrades of soft ware programs. When Microsoft Windows '95 was released it was embraced with open arms.

Information Technology

Definition: A term that encompasses all forms of technology used to create, store, exchange and utilize information in its various forms including business data, conversations, still images, motion pictures and multimedia presentations

When it comes to technology and your business, you'll need to know enough about the topic to understand what your business needs and why. And while you won't need to be able to disassemble and reassemble a PC against a stopwatch like a Marine does his M-16, you'll want to know a little more than simply how to turn on your computer and then launch your favorite programs.

Computers and peripherals are constantly evolving, but knowing a few general specifications in each product category will help you find the best deal on the right equipment for your business--or at least understand what a tech expert is telling you. And what a business needs is not the same for everyone. There's no one "right" PC brand or printer type any more than there's one right car for everyone out on the road today.

Getting Started

Let's start by behaving as if you're already a Fortune 500 company--in miniature. Over the decades, large businesses have learned quite a bit about getting the most out of their office equipment. The first lesson is: You don't buy equipment; you buy systems.

As you shop for PCs, fax machines and phones, keep in mind that the goal is to make all this equipment work well together and, to the extent possible, talk to one another--that is, share data. If your personal digital assistant (PDA) can't easily transfer data to your desktop, your fax machine can't accept computer files, or you're building contact lists and address books in a lot of different and incompatible applications, you're duplicating your efforts, which means you're losing time. Efficiency today means being well connected--both inside and outside the walls of your company.

Even if you start off as a solo operator working from a home office, you're still going to need connections to clients and suppliers in the wider world. That not only means phone, fax and internet connections, but also some level of connectivity in the applications that make them work--e-mail, instant messaging, web protocols and more.

At some point, you may want to share proposals, spreadsheets and other files--not only among co-workers but possibly customers and suppliers as well. That suggests you'll want to stick with the most popular operating systems and applications to improve your chances of collaboration with others. Certainly, you'll want to do that within your own company.

Incidentally, even if you're starting as a solo operator, you'll need at least two connected computers. And if you're like many businesspeople today, you probably already own three or four "computing devices"--PC, laptop, PDA, cell phone--with a lot of wired and/or wireless connections among them and your other office equipment.

But why two desktop computers? Actually, one of those could be a laptop for travel. But you need two because of that inevitable day when your hard drive crashes or your computer gets a virus or there's some inscrutable problem with your PC's on/off button--whatever. Your PC is likely to become the heart and soul of your operation, and while computer equipment is very durable, all equipment fails.

So what will you do when that machine that holds your critical business information fails? Even if you're among that small fraction of people who back up their data religiously and have it available somewhere on tape or CD-ROM, how long will it take you to run out and buy a new PC and add all the software you regularly use configured just the way you like it so you can start loading that data? How many hours or days can your business go before you get back online with your customers?

Realistically, you don't want even one hour of lost productivity. At a minimum, you need at least one duplicate of your main PC's entire setup that you can immediately turn to without losing a step. As mentioned, that duplicate image could be a laptop used for travel. Ideally, it will be another desktop just as capable or nearly so as your first.

That second computer doesn't have to sit idle until an emergency. It can be working in the meantime to help carry the computing load on your local area network (LAN)--and, for that matter, your wide area network, which includes your connection to the internet and your website.

Networking lets you share computing power and divvy up your workload among different systems. For example, as companies grow, they often find it cheaper and more convenient to keep master copies of software and even data on a central PC and give each employee's workstation access to more or less of it, depending on the employee's access privileges.

It's also often convenient to get your printer, fax and scanner off your desk by attaching them to a second PC that can accept jobs from all the other PCs on the network. Another increasingly common use of a second PC is as a communications server to your e-commerce web site and to house the several e-mail boxes and instant messaging archives you and co-workers will collect.
So you need to start shopping, not for computers, but for a network for your computers. That's not as complicated as it sounds, especially since Windows and other popular operating systems have networking capabilities built in these days. At the LAN level, that will be over an Ethernet connection. You'll also want to connect smaller devices to your network via various wired or wireless protocols that will be built into your different devices.

As mentioned, if you travel or work at home and the office or different spots around your home, you may prefer that your second computer be a laptop. Portables come in all shapes and sizes today, and you can easily find one powerful enough to perform any or all of the desktop duties described above.
Any PC that delivers data and other services to multiple devices is called a "server." The word "server" is also used to refer to the operating system--software like Windows 2000 or its successor, Windows XP. These operating systems include all the features you'll need to connect your server to other computers, sometimes called "clients."

The traditional way to create your LAN is to string very inexpensive Category 5 cable (it looks a lot like the typical phone line on steroids) between the Ethernet adapters of two or more PCs. You may need to buy a small and inexpensive Ethernet card to plug in to one or more of your PCs if any of them is either old or cheap. But the easier approach is to make built-in Ethernet a must-have on your PC shopping list. (As a matter of fact, Ethernet has become such a common feature of today's business-class PCs that it may not even cost you extra for the ability to transfer data at 10 or 100 megabits per second.)
Easier still is to network your PCs wirelessly using 802.11 or Wi-Fi network adapters. These come in a variety of adapter types and connect to your PC in different ways. Similarly, unable to accept an Ethernet card, some small devices like PDAs and cell phones rely on the wireless Bluetooth or Infrared communication methodologies.

Choosing a PCWhen it comes to selecting the right computer for your business, you need to make sure you're looking at the business-class PCs. What exactly is a business-class PC? In brief, it's one that includes various connectivity components like built-in Ethernet and the software utilities to manage networking, as well as the slots, bays and ports needed to expand memory, storage and business peripherals.

A business-class PC isn't necessarily more expensive than today's well-equipped home computers, but it's not the cheapest PC you can buy, either. In its standard configuration, it's priced in the midrange. But you don't necessarily want to buy the standard configuration.

While high-end consumer systems focus on multimedia entertainment, gaming and other recreational activities, a business user's money is better spent getting just a little more of all the standard stuff. You want more memory, more storage, and a higher-resolution or larger display, because all these things not only make computing more pleasant, but also enhance your productivity.
They can help you do more in less time, and if you're in business, time is money. Waiting for databases to update, insufficient memory errors, waiting for web pages to download-these things waste your time. You want to have the best business productivity enhancer you can afford.
PC components change pretty quickly--always for the better. It's hard to take a snapshot of PC functionality that won't go out of date right away. But we can give you a few guidelines:

CPU. Starting with the brains of the computer or the central processing unit, you'll want your systems powered by nothing less than an Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent Athlon XP class processor from Advanced Micro Devices as opposed to, say, Celrons, Durons, Pentium IIIs or earlier generations. System clock speeds have been soaring higher in recent years, so you shouldn't invest in anything less than a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon XP 2100+ machine with 512KB of on-chip cache memory and 400MHz frontside bus for processor-to-memory transfers. On-chip cache is critically important to your processor's performance.

RAM. Random Access Memory is also critically important. Considerably slower and cheaper than cache, RAM is the bucket your computer's processor uses to hold vast amounts of data and program instructions while it works. The standard amount of RAM is always climbing as the programs we use become ever more ambitious. Consider 512MB to be the minimum for a business-class PC, and you really should have 1GB. Here's where the price of your PC jumps the most. But adding memory is the single-most beneficial thing you can to enhance your PC's performance.

Hard drive. One or more physical hard drives, each of which can be divided into multiple logical drives, are the warehouses where you store multimegabyte programs and gigabytes worth of data. This is the permanent storage location of your programs and files, and, if only because they are so inexpensive, there's no reason to have a PC with less than 80GB of storage. The real price differential comes with the speed at which the platters in your hard drive spin. Another productivity enhancer: Make sure you don't buy anything slower than a 7200RPM drive.

Optical drive. It's pretty hard to find a computer without a CD-ROM drive these days. In fact, it's hard to find one without a rewritable CD. But time marches on, and today it's preferable to have a rewritable DVD in your PC. For starters, DVD platters hold 4.3GB instead of the 650MB of CD-ROMs. That's enough to hold a first-run movie, although the principal business application is to copy all your hard drive data onto one or more rewritable DVD discs and then store them off-site. Of all your backup alternatives, none is so reliable, so durable and so cheap as simply copying the contents of your hard drives to an optical drive. Any of the popular DVD rewriting methods will be able to read your CD-ROM discs as well.
Display. To put it bluntly, monitors are dead. Long live liquid crystal displays (LCDs). These thin-line, low-power alternatives to the hot, bulky monitor are still a good deal more expensive to buy. But prices are falling fast, and they not only save a huge amount of desktop space, but also enough in power and cooling costs over a traditional monitor that they are actually cheaper in the long run. A 15-inch LCD is the viewing equivalent of a 17-inch monitor but has a higher resolution and is easier on the eyes. Depending on features, it should cost $300 to $400. Spend a couple hundred dollars more, and a 17-inch LCD will provide higher resolution and contrast, and a wider viewing angle for, say, group presentations. Either is cheapest when purchased from a discount warehouse store separate from your PC.

Modem. One of your best business investments today is broadband Internet access. Depending on your location, that could be via a phone company's T1, ATM fiber relay or DSL, or the same cable that brings content to your TV. At the very least, your PC is likely to include a 56K modem for connections over a phone line, at least as an available option. Not much to think about there except, even if you have a broadband connection, the $30 to $50 you'll need to spend to get a 56K modem is well worth it in the event your broadband connection fails.

While nothing prevents you from buying parts at a computer retailer and building your own PC from the motherboard up, you'll find that the economics argue against that. Likewise, upgrades of your PC's CPU seldom make good economic sense anymore with new PC prices so low.
But it's still relatively easy and economically feasible to add memory, storage and peripherals. Make sure your new PC has free memory sockets, drive bays, PCI peripheral slots and ports. Usually, all these become more bountiful as you move from a desktop to minitower to full tower case. But there are some upgrade possibilities you should demand in even the smallest computer:
Memory. Always insist that all the initial memory on a new PC be included on a single DIMM (dual inline memory module). Insist on at least one open memory slot.

Storage. It's hard to say which is happening faster--the growth in hard-drive capacity or the fall in hard-drive prices. We measure storage in gigabytes these days, and you should be able to add another 80GB of storage for less than $100. While more is always better, at the very least, insist that your new PC have one free internal 3.5-inch storage bay that can accept another hard drive. Also insist on at least one externally available 5.25-inch drive bay into which you may want to add another kind of optical drive than the one that will ship with your PC.
Peripherals. You never know whether you may choose to add a different graphics adapter, a wireless networking card, a board for an external storage device or scanner, or who knows. Insist on two open PCI slots on even the smallest desktops.

Ports. Increasingly, the things that hang off your PC--mice, trackballs, keyboards, still and video cameras, external drives, printers and scanners--are relying on the new high-bandwidth FireWire and USB 2.0 ports, especially the latter. They often replace legacy serial, parallel and PS/2 ports--sometimes even PCI slots. No need to give up legacy connections yet, but make sure your PC still has a half-dozen USB 2.0 ports both front and back. If you're lucky, you may also find a Windows PC with a built-in FireWire port for multimedia connections. Add-on FireWire or USB 2.0 hubs will only put you back about cost $50 to $100.

Introuction of IT

Information Technology – A Definition

We use the term information technology or IT to refer to an entire industry. In actuality, information technology is the use of computers and software to manage information. In some companies, this is referred to as Management Information Services (or MIS) or simply as Information Services (or IS). The information technology department of a large company would be responsible for storing information, protecting information, processing the information, transmitting the information as necessary, and later retrieving information as necessary.

Information Technology - Trends

Going forward, the Information Technology Department will be increasingly concerned with data storage and management, and will find that information security will continue to be at the top of the priority list. The job outlook for those within Information Technology is strong, with data security and server gurus amongst the highest paid techies. Check out the Highest Paying Certifications for more information.

Information communication technology

Information and Communications Technology - or technologies (ICT) is an umbrella term that includes all technologies for the manipulation and communication of information. The term is sometimes used in preference to Information Technology (IT), particularly in two communities: education and government.

Although,in the common usage it is often assumed that ICT is synonymous with IT; ICT in fact encompasses any medium to record information (magnetic disk/tape, optical disks (CD/DVD), flash memory etc. and arguably also paper records); technology for broadcasting information - radio, television; and technology for communicating through voice and sound or images - microphone, camera, loudspeaker, telephone to cellular phones. It includes the wide variety of computing hardware (PCs, servers, mainframes, networked storage), the rapidly developing personal hardware market comprising mobile phones, personal devices, MP3 players, and much more; the full gamut of application software from the smallest home-developed spreadsheet to the largest enterprise packages and online software services; and the hardware and software needed to operate networks for transmission of information, again ranging from a home network to the largest global private networks operated by major commercial enterprises and, of course, the Internet. Thus, "ICT" makes more explicit that technologies such as broadcasting and wireless mobile telecommunications are included.