Sri Lanka Telecom has started rolling out the first phase of its plan to innovative broadband access technologies for residential and business customers.

The SLT said that ADSL or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line is essentially a continuously open data line to an Internet Service Provider that works over conventional telephone lines. ADSL in addition 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 ADSL 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.

ADSL’s asymmetric flows of download and upload streams make SLT ADSL Internet surfing technology of choice in Sri Lanka. In conventional Internet browsing, download and upload streams are symmetric, hence consumes equal amount of bandwidth. But nature of internet browsing requires bigger bandwidth for downloading and smaller bandwidth for uploading, because upload stream carries only internet users request to the web server whilst 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, 2Mbps download/ 512Kbps 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 through 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 ADSL’s launch to certain key exchanges first. These areas currently compose 80% of Sri Lanka’s internet traffic and are a logical starting point in a network that will soon encompass the entirety of Sri Lanka.

With the efforts of strategic partners such as Cisco and Alcatel, companies at the top of their field specialising 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 SLT has adopted state of the art technologies for access authentication and data interruption to protect all communications. The SLT network infrastructure utilises fiber optics at the IP backbone level which has proven much more dependable than previous cable options while using copper cables of very a 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 the next step in the rollout plan. Each connection will take approximately two weeks to set up with a one time fee of Rs. 2,000 for connection. An ADSL modem costing a minimum of Rs. 9,500 needed and can be purchased at any SLT Teleshop. After the initial connection there will be a flat monthly fee starting at Rs. 2,250 for ADSL Home Express Package and Rs. 6,750 for ADSL Office Express Package. This is separate from the telephone bill for normal telephone calls (voice) taken by the customer.

ADSL is available as of now at exchanges that carry the following starting number sequences.