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growth of Sri Lanka in the twenty-first century, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency. This is in spite of some negative effects of the recent global economic crisis on consumer incomes and employment prospects. A few informants said that the global economic crisis created financial constraints for private sector operators in investing in new infrastructure developments that would have created an expansion of employment opportunities in the sector.

This has been evident in the implementation of voluntary retirement schemes by some of the other telecommunication companies since 2009. These schemes were also commented on by an informant. However, he claimed that a major reason for voluntary retirement schemes of some other mobile operators was because of the huge losses they incurred due to failures in price competition strategies. Sri Lanka Telecom was not required to declare a voluntary retirement scheme as the losses incurred by their mobile phone segment could be covered by other services provided by Sri Lanka Telecom.

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Even though the global economic crisis put the information and communication technology sector under threat, it opened up opportunities for new business models that could use new technologies to cut costs, for example, markets facilitated by low priced, higher performance consumer broadband. Thus, in the long term, according to the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (2009), the sector may emerge with new opportunities.

Gunawardana (2007) claims that the constant evolution of telecommunications technology, especially during the last two decades, has completely changed the pace at which businesses operate, how people communicate and their lifestyles. More specifically, the introduction of digital technology in telephone networks has resulted in significant changes in the telecommunication industry, with the convergence of voice, data and video, and the use of IP phones, which allow users to speak over a network, such as the Internet or an intranet. More and more people are using information and communications technology for health, education, government and business through mobile technologies and mobile Internet, as they provide the cheapest, most reliable and most flexible means of exchanging information in a broad range of economic and social activities.

For example, the banking sector of Sri Lanka has introduced telecommunications in banking services, such as telephone banking and Internet banking. The mobile operators of Sri Lanka have introduced a service called e-channelling, which can be used to make appointments with doctors using Short Message Service (SMS, otherwise known as texting). Recently, the Government launched a programme using mobile phones to help dairy farmers to contact veterinary surgeons quickly. An insurance company introduced a system to pay claims directly to customers’ bank accounts using mobile communication, in collaboration with a mobile operator and a private bank. These examples demonstrate the extent to which Sri Lanka is adopting new trends in mobile communication to support economic activities.

The use of mobile phones has been changing the way of life of the general public. For example, customers can pay utility bills via mobile phones or Internet. This means they no longer have to wait in queues, which saves them time and is more convenient, as they can do it from home or, if using a mobile device, from anywhere. The present Government has given a high priority to the development of information and

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communications technology; and has taken steps to improve the IT and English skills of the workforce to suit jobs in the private sector. Rapid growth in use of information and communications technology facilities in day to day activities is supported by the increased IT literacy in the country. This literacy has increased from around 10% - 15% in 2007 to 25% in 2009 (Department of Census and Statistics, 2009).

Reciprocally, such improvements in society have provided an opportunity for telecommunications operators to further expand their markets. As a result of popularisation of information and communication technology, they have experienced a high public demand for various telecommunications services, both domestic and corporate. Accordingly, there is elevated competition among the operators to capture these newly created markets, for example, introduction of value added mobile phone services and broadband services, IPTV, and special broadband packages for university and school students. Such changes in the industry arose from high competition, which required the operators to change their business strategies, technologies and management structures to suit the new trends in the industry.

During recent years, further factors that contributed to the rapid growth in demand for telecommunication facilities include: the rapid expansion and high involvement of the private sector in economic activities, the expansion of financial and other services, the movement of people to urban areas and to foreign countries, the high literacy rate, the increase in per capita income and the increase in women’s participation in the labour force. Demand for telecommunications services in Northern and Eastern parts of the country also increased significantly in 2009 when the terrorist war came to an end. The rapidly growing telecommunications industry has also supported the growing business sector of country, with new technology in doing business such as the Internet and mobile banking, online trading, and data handling. Further, the Government of Sri Lanka has taken steps to increase broadband facilities throughout the country, especially in rural areas. The Director General of the Telecommunication Regulatory Committee announced in 2010 that the Government is considering reducing charges for broadband internet services. The main intention of this decision is to increase the number of internet users.

Since the liberalisation of the industry, although growth in the fixed line segment can be observed, industry performance is still at a low level compared to developed

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countries, and significant disparities in availability of telephone facilities are still being reported. More than 50% of the country’s telecommunications facilities are concentrated still in the Western Province, in spite of the significant increase in the number of subscribers in rural areas during the last decade. For example, while 57.9% of households possess telephone facilities in Colombo district, others are much lower, including Monaragala district, where only 3.2% of households possess telephone facilities. However, the telecommunication industry is performing better in Sri Lanka than it is in other countries in the region (Samarajiva, 1997).

In comparison with the fixed line telephone sector, rapid growth and extensive competition has occurred in the cellular telephone sector. This growth can be attributed to the easy connectivity to cellular networks, and how simply fixed line telephone services can be substituted by mobile telephone services. Furthermore, rapid growth and competition in the mobile telephone sector has resulted in the introduction of new technologies and value added services, with differentiated services to meet customer requirements. For example, easy accessibility to International Direct Dialling in making international calls favourably contributed to competitiveness against fixed line operators. Mobile operators expanded their networks to gain competitive advantage, especially after 2005. As mentioned above, the mobile telephony sector underwent severe price reductions due to fierce competition on prices. This caused a huge loss making situation in all companies operating in the industry and so the aforementioned shedding of employees. As a result of this crisis, the regulator imposed a minimum price to prevent further loss making.