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Business |
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Celltel GSM expansion at full speed |
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The expansion drive commenced by
Celltel in March this year which is the biggest GSM expansion
drive todate has seen the completion of 200 towers in a matter
of a mere 180 days which is the largest to date by any telecom
operator."The pace set up in this speed of expansion has creted
a new benchmark not only for us but in the whole industry," said
Celltel,s CEO Dumindra Ratnayake. "US $ 70 million has already
been spent to date towards coverage and quality improvement,
resulting in an increased capacity in Colombo of over 40%, a
200% increase in capacity in outstations, improved call success
rates of 99% , and call drop rates below 2%", said Ratnayka,
According to Celltel, the coverage now is in 100% of all main
towns such as Kandy,Galle, Pollunarwa, as well as second level
towns which include Habarna, Maskeliya, Karapitiya. "We have
also covered 60% of third level towns like Pinnawella and
Buttala while 30% of fourth level towns like Wellawa too have
been covered .In fact Celltel has excellent coverage even in
remote areas such as Wasgamuwa, Yala, Wellawaya, Minneriya, and
Udawalawe". On completion, the current expansion which
constitutes Phase VI and Phase VII of Celltel’s expansion
programme will result in a sixfold increase in GSM outstation
towers, resulting in excellent quality connectivity islandwide.
Celltel also commissioned its 3rd GSM switch which has a
capacity of 3 million subscribers while a full Disaster Recovery
System is also now in place for their switches.
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