NGN forum to enrich Lankan telco sector

Priyantha Kariyapperuma

By Indika Sakalasooriya
With the forum on Next Generation Network Standardisation scheduled to be held in Colombo this Tuesday, Sri Lankan Telecom sector will be able to initiate a dialogue on the dynamics of the Next Generation Networks (NGN) or the Fourth Generation (4G) networks, says Director General of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRCSL), Priyantha Kariyapperuma.
Despite all the drawbacks the country endured for the last one and a half decades largely owing to the prolonged terrorist problem, the local telcom sector saw gradual growth. Within the last five years the growth pace picked up phenomenally and as a result, Sri Lanka became the first South Asian country to introduce 3G and subsequently 3.5G.

“The Sri Lankan telecom sector, in all aspects, is on par with the ones in the developed countries. Therefore we can adopt NGN as soon as the developed world goes for it. This forum is expected to provide all the telecom players and the professionals involved in the sector with the dynamics and the opportunities of NGNs” Kariyapperuma said.

According to International Telecom Union (ITU), NGN is a packet based network which has the capacity to provide telecommunication services using multiple broadband, QOS enabled transport technologies in which service related functions are independent from underlying transport technologies. NGN also offers unfettered access to users despite different service providers and supports mobility.

The salient features of NGNs would be open interface, convergence, multimedia capability and extreme mobility.

As mentioned in the ITU website the forum will holds discussions on the latest developments on NGNs architecture, service requirements, network capabilities, and migration, ongoing changes in ITU-T working methods on NGN and beyond, as well as its new mandate on IPv6, security issues, including cyber security,

new ITU agenda on telecommunications standards, including on global greenhouse gas emissions, traffic accounting principles, learning sessions from existing ongoing NGN, and fixed-mobile integration case studies from various operators from Asia-Pacific and beyond, discussion on policy, and regulatory and developmental issues related to NGNs.

Kariyapperuma pointed out that NGNs will provide the Sri Lankans with unlimited connectivity and the TRCSL as the regulator have been laying out the regulatory measures for the smooth implementation of NGNs in the future.

“We have already discussed about a Communications Act with the Media Ministry since the convergence of the two i.e. telecom and media and communications is vital for further developments. Also, we will be launching a satellite within this year to further facilitate the country’s communication needs” he said.

More than 200 delegates from over 100 countries are expected at the Forum and Malcolm Johnson, Director, Telecommunication Standardisation Bureau, ITU will also grace the occasion. Dialog Telekom’s CEO and COO of TM, Malaysia, Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya are also expected to conduct a technical session in the forum.