Facebook and Google to enter Sri Lanka in June this year
While Sri Lanka being a developing island with many new innovations and technologies evolving, international big players and multibillionaires such as Facebook and Google are eyeing to enter the country in June this year. Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure, Harin Fernando made this disclosure at the Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) launch of South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 5 (SEA-ME-WE 5) submarine cable system together with the launch of SLT’s Tier 4 National Data Centre, at the Presidents House in Colombo on Monday.
Mr. Fernando said, “Today Sri Lanka is under the radar of many international big players and multi billionaire companies such as Facebook and Google who is looking forward to enter Sri Lanka in June this year.” Internet penetration in Sri Lanka today is only 26 per cent and if it goes above 50 per cent the country’s GDP and economy will grow rapidly , he added. President Maithripala Sirisena who was preset as the chief guest at the event said, “With fast moving technology, Sri Lanka is reaching greater heights with the use of internet and connectivity of people.
An intelligent person with the IT knowledge will have more and more innovations in mind and that is seen amongst the upcoming young generation. Today children are born to the world with all those technologies embedded in them. ICT is recognised as important as anything else in life, which is the gear for a prosperous future.” In 2014, SLT partnered with 15 international telecommunication operators representing 17 countries, in the formation of a consortium in order to build the SEA-ME-WE 5 state-of-the-art undersea cable system. This cable system spans over 20,000 km whilst offering POP-to-POP (Point of Presence) solutions from Singapore to Europe via France and Italy. The system connects 17 countries and serves as a new platform for the future development in the ICT industry.
The concept of the new submarine cable system evolved around the capacity requirements of inter-continents to support the next generation of internet applications, which come from every part of the world. SEA-ME-WE 5 is designed to provide upgradeable transmission facilities by adopting the latest multiple 100 Gbps technology. When fully loaded, the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system is capable of carrying a total of 24 Terabytes per second, equivalent to transmitting around 4800 high definition movies every second. SLT is globally connected with a number of other countries including the members of the consortium.
The organisation understands the importance of joining Sri Lanka to the new cable system where all international communications between nations are done through undersea cable networks, much like the SEA-ME-WE 5. This plays a key role in developing the country’s ICT industry as well as helping Sri Lanka join the ranks of advanced and developed nations around the world. SLT’s Tier 4 National Data Center which will be located at the newly proposed Tech City will save enterprise customers and government organisations, large sum of money by eliminating the need for maintaining their own data centers. SLT intends to provide expert knowledge and bear all costs associated with space, protection and disaster management. All data will be stored lawfully and will be secure against any such vulnerability. The data centre will have a capacity of 500 racks.