First South Asia Broadband Communications Congress & Expo

The Congress will address the fast growing markets in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Broadband is critical for realizing the socioeconomic goals in transforming to a knowledge based economy.

The first South Asia Broadband Communications Congress and Expo will be held this September in order to foster a target oriented collaborative program for proliferation of access to broadband services of affordable and acceptable quality on key issues of national and regional importance.

Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Rauf Hakeem told reporters this week at a press conference that the government fully endorses the conference which will be of great interest to Sri Lankans and investors abroad. The region requires broadband to develop to its fullest potential and a broadband communications infrastructure will support economic development at great speed in the coming decade. The Congress is seeking to bring together and exploit the huge potential in the brain pool of resources available within the region for discovery, learning, brainstorming and fellowship.

Hakeem said broadband will be a boom to the country's economy. The telecommunications sector has a high growth potential and attracts the largest investments.

The Congress will address the fast growing markets in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He said the conference must include policymakers and is trying to organize a parallel ministerial summit. Regulators from the region are also expected to attend. They are essential in playing a role in the affordability of connections. He said connection charges in Sri Lanka are amongst the highest in the region and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) of Sri Lanka must concentrate on affordability and increase competition.

Executive Director of Lirneasia, Rohan Samarajiva added that in this day and age, people expect high speed connections to engage in e-commerce, video conferencing, interactions with others and to do everyday tasks such as banking. He stressed the importance of keeping up with the outside world. In fact, peak usage of the Internet is shifting from office hours to evening hours when people are at home, using their computers. The Conference will be useful because there is a lot of learning to be done and problems to be solved. According to Samarajiva, one of the greatest resources for Sri Lanka is living next to India, an enormous IT powerhouse which is connecting six million users a month.

Head of the Consumer Market Development Division for Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), M.Z. Saleem said SLT is the largest player in broadband and telecom services in the country and it is important for them, as partner sponsor for the event, to share and learn from other countries.
(NG)