F**K SLT

Please contact me at wattegama@lirne.net asap.

Please check your mail for more info.

Chanuka Wattegama
LIRNEasia

I am no expert in Policy as Samarajiva San thinks but Telecom expert friend helps me As an economist I know the importance of competition, qualitative and quantitative wise on the market and the well being of the society. I am shocked when Samarajiva San now tells in his comment at 49 that the SLT license does not permit the unbundling of local loop. If that is so why did he allow the highly paid Arculli to spend time in preparing recommendations not to un-bundle the local loop given at R23 of their report which again is outside the term of reference

Mr Samarajiva san having tried to put the blame on the license – may be he suspects that it is not good enough to confuse the public - next tries to place the blame on Mr Ranil San whom I believe is the Minister he was advising, for accepting the Arculli recommendations put up by him as the Minster’s trustworthy adviser’

I am told Arculli is a well known International firm and it troubles me to find that at least Samarajiva San did not correct Arculli report if the license of SLT does not allow unbundling. My expert friend feels that it is yet another soothing melody from Canada.-may be from the Malroony era He says it is a not a song or joke but one that nicely fiddle to block effective competition in international telephone service the reason for which I have explained in my earlier comment.

When I tried to post my comment I find that ADSL blog has vanished from your main page but instead two new blogs on similar subjects that try to shift the attention from the Sri Lankan ADSL problem is now appearing on your web So I am posting my comments onto both blogs

However my Sri Lankan friends and others known to them say it is important to get first hand feedback from the public and talking about other markets will not helpful to solve the problem They now worry based on the information given in these two blogs that local loop unbundling will be given up and they will have to give up their wired connection for which they have spent very much -often more than Rs 65000 and get wireless CDMA to access to the Internet

My Sri Lankan friends say only very few of the large number of Sri Lankans without Internet connectivity access has access to Internet Cafes from where they browse and email. Gathering public opinion with the help of the news papers they say is therefore important and wish me to make a request to the TRCSL to help them So I am copying this mail also to him My friend will send this mail also to several news papers

Dear Blog Master

Remedying the Malaise of Sri Lanka’s Broadband Access Service

I am much surprised at Mr. Samarajiva’s (Mr. S) comments at 49 of the LIRNE Asia blog for they are even far more self contradictory than those made in his previous submission I reiterate that my aim in contributing to the blog is to help its endeavor to terminate expeditiously, the SLT ADSL monopoly created by the PIPU and overcome the barriers impeding interconnection on demand Such action will relieve the current users and those yearning for the service , the burden of its high cost and the inconvenience of the very poor service quality, boost market competitiveness and at the same time ensure that regulatory safeguards are built in to ensure that the sector will not continue to be exploited by imposturous consultants and miscreants

But Mr. S contrary to his previous comments says that:

““ADSL is provided on twisted pair. Currently the only license that allows the laying of twisted pair in the access network in Sri Lanka is that issued to SLTL in 1991. More than the absence of LLU, it is this license condition (or rather, its absence in the other fixed licenses issued in 1996) that has given SLTL a monopoly on ADSL “

Then why is that Mr. Samarajiva’s consultant Arculli recommended as reported in the blog not to unbundle the twisted pair and why did Mr. S not moderate the report of Arculli to apprise of the above limitation of the licenses and avoid misleading the then Government . In this regard Mr. S tries as usual to “TWIST” the issue further to confuse the public , by referring to other fixed licenses whereas the requirement is to offer the large latent untapped Band Width of the twisted copper pair of the SLT to prospective operators of Broad Band access service

In this regard, it is worthy to note that Mr. S was the DGT under the Govt. of Madame Chandrika Bnadaranaike as well and had ample opportunity to correct the shortcoming if it truly existed

In this context according to the understanding of several highly experienced professionals who have planned commissioned and operated telecom networks and also have considerable experience in regulatory functions as well, the stipulations in the licenses are no barrier to open up the market On the contrary its provisions are highly supportive of offering any individual network component to the extent feasible to those who need their service

It is unfortunate that Mr. S does not realize that these self contradictory comments are not only detrimental to the public interests but also disparage the image and the credibility of the Lirne Asia

In order to cover these misdeeds, Mr. S, once again, contrary to his previous comments, says
“Arculli Associates, I or Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe are supposed to have created a monopoly in ADSL services. The report was completed in late 2002. ADSL was first offered in Sri Lanka after that.”
It is very unfair to make Mr. Ranil Wickremaisinghe (Mr.R.W) a scapegoat of this misdeed for he acted in good faith of his most opulently remunerated consultant Mr. S who has skillfully won his unswerving unflinching trust. This trust it is reliably gathered, PIPU abused to impose its unproductive costly consultancies and their recommendations on the TRC unconcerned of its adverse impact on the sector . The public is very fortunate that this Govt ‘s wisely decided to closed down the PIPU to end the burden and inconvenience it inflicted on the taxpayer
In this context Mr. Samarajiva’s in his earlier comments says that he takes full responsibility for the recommendations of Arculli report and endeavor to justify that Arculli is correct by stating that the unbundling in other countries have been a failure But in the above comment Mr S tries to wriggle out of his accountability to the public by saying that ADSL was introduced after the report was completed in 2002 This is another instance Mr. S does not realize that he is contradicting with his own comments cited above and in his previous submissions where Mr. S states that the unbundling of the local loop was not in the Arculli consultancy This is an explicit admission of the fact that Arculli did recommend not to un-bundle the loop, a fact he did try, though not successful to cover up in his previous comments
Mr. S to my query on the recommendations outcome and the cost of PIPU’s expert missions carried out refers to the link http://www.safirasia.org/safir/files/Newsletter/Issue17.pdf
It is to verify the authenticity of these observations that this information was requested but this link does not provide any information of the numerous consultancies engaged by the PIPU, the money spent and the outcome. It provides a paper authored by Mr. S giving nothing but a dubious outline of Mr. S’s activities without any accountability to the taxpayer of the nearly US$ 35 million spent by the PIPU

For e.g. it blames others such as the SLTL for the inability for the new entrants of EGO licenses to start the operations’ up to now but according to a comment in the blog the failure to interconnect is the highly asymmetric interconnection requirements stipulated in the Arculli report to help the existing operators that forced the new entrants to be at the mercy of not only the SLTL but all the other existing operators for interconnections It is gathered that though TRC was forewarned of the imminent dismal failure of Arculli consultancy it was unable to stall the abusive might of the PIPU coercing the TRC to accept the consultancy. The outcome of this collusive manipulation is that the International call charges as mentioned in the blog are about five fold more than what it should be.

It is therefore not surprising that none of the PIPU’s consultancy reports are accessible to the public I therefore appeal to any person who has these reports to publish them on the blog or on the Regulator’s Web Now that PIPU is no more the TRC should assert its statutory responsibility to protect the public interest from such harmful acts of miscreants.

Considering the paramount importance of wide band access for improving the economy of Sri Lanka and social well being of its people I am very keen to offer my help to the sector and the Regulator with a simple pragmatic strategy to improve the cost effectiveness’ and quality of the BB access service and at the same time safe guard the sector from exploitation by the like of PIPU’s consultants

So in the interest of Sri Lanka lets move ahead with action to resolve the problem that is to set up an open and fully accountable public platform that will enable the market to not only readily access the copper loop to harness its untapped latent BW for providing the nation with affordable broad Band Access but also one that would provide interconnection on demand to any operator current or new that would give an impetus to market competitiveness in all services i.e. information and the legacy telephony

Yours truly
Damith

He then wants to talk to me in person and wants me to “take care.”

Arculli Associates or me or Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe are supposed to have created a monopoly in ADSL services. The report was completed in late 2002. ADSL was first offered in Sri Lanka after that.

ADSL is provided on twisted pair. Currently the only license that allows the laying of twisted pair in the access network in Sri Lanka is that issued to SLTL in 1991. More than the absence of LLU, it is this license condition (or rather, its absence in the other fixed licenses issued in 1996) that has given SLTL a monopoly on ADSL.

I am sorry this was not remedied in 2002-04; we ran out of time. I hope it will be done soon.

The telecom consultancies that were supervised by PIPU are described fully at: http://www.safirasia.org/safir/files/Newsletter/Issue17.pdf

I leave it to readers to figure out who makes more sense.

I decided to write to the blog, since that is the only way i can communicate with you…
Since both of us good interest on Sri lankan ADSL , can we have a voice talk, or i can write to you directly.
My e-mail address is internet@cwjamaica.com ( you should have it already with you as you are the blog moderator.)

and my skype login is damithw

Take care
Damith

Dear Blog Master, .lirneasia.

This is in reference to Mr. Samarajiva’s reply ( blog # 38) to D ( damith ) and M (Shinya Matsumoto) , which I trust is my self and the Japanese Gent

At no stage did I expect to embarrass the very author of blog but to highlight practical and expeditious solutions to the problem. Reading carefully the comments of the Jap Gent his intentions too happen to be the same to communicate with his friends in Sri Lanka on the Internet.

What surprises me most through lengthy, self contradictory and judiciously illogical (see appendix for details) statements made in the reply is only an admission that Mr. Samarajiva is the person accountable for engaging the Arculli the consultant and accepting their recommendations that created the ADSL problem to serve the vested interests and not that of the nation and public.

I would have saluted Mr. Samarajiva had he used his position in the PIPU to moderate the recommendation R23 of Arculli report, not only to deny SLT having the monopoly status in providing ADSL services but follow the Japanese example of denying the owner of the telephone loop to provide ADSL services. This would have undoubtedly helped to liberalized the use of telephone loop to others to provide ADSL services giving the user to get the service not only at low price, get the modem and mail boxes free of charge and to cause a several fold reduction in the International Telephone Call charges. This is the true and genuine liberalization of voice and non-voice services which Samarajiva also endorses in his contradictory statements.
Now I gather from the Financial Times on the web that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), contrary to fundamental regulatory norms of protecting public interests and convenience well accepted internationally has issued directive to suspend the provision of fresh ADSL lines until the services are upgraded. This action is no better than a decision of the court of King Kekille. Clearly the problem lies somewhere else and this decision is causing a denial of service to prospective customers. TRC has in issuing the directive conveniently ignored the numerous appeals made to the DGT by the ADSL users to open up the market
The only logical inference is that the DGT like Mr. Samarajiva is also protecting the vested interests, not that of the nation and the public and pretending to be intellectually myopic.
Nevertheless my sincere aim in view of the noble goal of your blog as expressed in your responses to the opinion subscribed by the grieved ADSL users was and still is to help your efforts. Hence I have for your benefit appended some of your self contradictory and judiciously illogical comments In this context it would be most helpful for my legal experts to examine the regulatory action taken by the TRC if you could provide the following information to show to the public as you say “ The real question is not what I was paid, but what the results were,.” the good work you have carried out under the PIPU
(a) Arculli’s interim and final reports
(b) List of all the consultancies engaged by the PPIU ,
(c) the fees paid for each consultancy,
(d) the recommendations of each consultancy and supported ;
(e) its monitored impact on the sector
(f) The salary drawn by the head of the PIPU and expenses of the PIPU during its tenure of operations

Yours truly

Damith

Appendix

Examples of self contradictory and judiciously illogical Mr. Samarajiva’s (Sarajvs’s) Comments
1. In Sarajvs’s comments to M regarding his US$ 300,000 per annum salary says
“Please note that my contract was approved by Cabinet For any day that I did not work on the project a sum of USD 600 was deducted, which resulted in considerably lower payments than stipulated. The real question is not what I was paid, but what the results were.”
It is evident from Sarajvs’ comment that event if he availed of leave for entire working days of the year he would get a salary of US$ 156,000 per annum i.e US$ 13000 per month. This gratis salary of US$ 13,000 per month i.e. the “Ping Padiya” paid if he did not work on any working day of the year. Sarajvs says, resulted in considerably lower payments. For this he holds the cabinet accountable
2. In Sarajvs’s comments to M Sarajvs say
“ Given the depth of your studies, I am surprised that you (M) do not know that the objective of the 2002-03 reforms was the liberalization of the international gateway, not local loop unbundling”
2.1. This is what M precisely is pointing out to Sarajvs. M says in his comments
“The job of the consultants is one thing, that is regarding interconnection and opening of International Services but they recommend something outside and against international practice also” .
2.2. Any person with minimal commonsense see that view Sarajvs is identical to M’s But Sarajvs think otherwise

3. In Sarajvs’s comments Sarajvs says
“I am highly impressed that a Japanese economist would spend so much time on preparing a detailed comment on a telecom policy”
4. On the contrary M is not referring to policy M is keen to solve the problem to communicate with his Sri Lankan friend in Sri Lanka In this regard it evident from Sarajvs) reply
“that this organization not generally intervene in policy matters on an ad hoc basis. We have a full research and capacity building program, a small staff and no slack. I did not volunteer to coordinate any plan of action in this area”
that Sarajvs is not endeavoring to explore practical options solve the problem expeditiously but rather to market Sarajvs’s resources on his favorite topic “policy” referred to in many instances in his comments

4.1. In this respect M points out that
“ All about 35Gateway licensees who were not earlier Telecom operators cannot operate due to interconnection difficulties. If ADSL was liberalized then the price of ADSL comes down and my friend says with increase of real-time services, the price of International Calls also will come down. It is obvious that the Private Interest Program Unit wanted to help monopoly status of SLT in ADSL and to have little competition in international call services of Sri Lanka”
Sarajvs refrain form commenting on the failure of the 35 new licensees mentioned in M.s comments but says that “
I am also surprised that you expect a country like Sri Lanka, where governments change every few years (the government that undertook the gateway liberalization fell before it completed the reform) and where the regulatory agency is working with an obsolete law from 1991, to implement LLU, when…
But Sarajvs do not provide the interconnection requirements stipulated in the license prepared by the Arculli
5. In Sarajvs’s comments to M Sarajvs says
“As the person responsible for managing the Arculli Associates consultancy (among others) for the Ministry…. I am willing to be held accountable for the results of my work, though of course, the overall decision for the reform was taken by the then government.”
5.1. Once again as in the case of his exorbitantly opulent salary he put the blame on the Government for accepting his misleading Recommendation R23 of the Arculli report that gave the SLT the Monopoly to operate ADSL service at exorbitant price The only logical reason is that the SLT is compelled to raise the ASDSL exorbitantly is to recover the money paid for Arculli’s and PIPU’s recommendation
***********************

Well, the point of leaving this comment is to add some positive thought amongst most of the negative:) I do agree that the rental is too high for the bandwidth we receive. But for now, I am quite satisfied with the service and agree that i have got what I knew i was paying for.

however, they seemed to have underestimated the average usage of bandwidth. I feel they have gone by the dial-up usage and thought, “hmmmm… according to these statistics, we can definitely go ’slightly’ overboard and issue ADSL connections left, right and center” and of course, it must have looked pretty good on their account books!

so far, my home connection in Malambe is good. but the moment some people sign up, I will be crawling as I do at the office.

are they trying to promote their leased lines? (its cheaper to put one’s own satellite into orbit, and think of the bandwidth and speed)

Yesterday’s newspapers carried a large advert by SLT proclaiming that now they have 1.5Gbps backbone. Well… so far i haven’t felt my bits of data traveling any faster than last week!

anyway, I am just another ticked-off user. Let Dialog introduce their own flavour of ADSL and I might just hop to that. Their current 3G connectivity is waaaaaaaaay too expensive! Even they have to come down to Earth first.

I sincerely hope that someone with more than two brain-cells (minimum needed to make a connection) from SLT reads this and understand how irate their consumers are. The biggest problem is that they don’t have good competition and they enjoy the monopoly in a kind of a sadistic manner.

More details- http://koolbuddhi.blogspot.com/

· Copy to DGT TRC email dgtsl@trc.gov.lk
Refers your queer directive to Suspend ADSL new connections without considering public convenience and the more realistic solution to open up the ADSL market which the public has been agitating for well over two years

Dear a Mr Samarjiva

Few days ago while I was taking to a friend of mine about my ADSL problem he said that I should visit your blog It was encouraging to find out from the mails posted on the blog that I am not the only grieved user unhappy with the SLT monopoly service specifically with its very high charges and unendurable poor quality of service
If in Japan according to your blog a 50 MB ADSL connection could be given at Rs 3600 then 2 MB connection could be easily given around Rs 150 per month So who is the culprit in Sri Lanka did recommend that SLT should have the monopoly to provide ADSL to enable SLT to exploit the innocent public ? This culprit like in Singapore should whipped and if permissible like in the times of Sinhalese Kings publicly
To make matters more inconvenient to the customers who have been waiting all this while for broad band connectivity it is understood that the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), acting on complaints of poor quality ADSL lines from subscribers, very strangely has asked Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) to suspend the issuance of fresh ADSL lines until the services are upgraded
This rather queer directive disregarding the convenient of the public was not known until published in the Sunday Times of 15th June It is quite puzzling to note that the TRC has suddenly issued such queer directive without caring for public convenience and without giving notice to the public when there has been much public agitation to open up the market or competition over the last two years
My friend says that the answers to the puzzle is linked to the talk among most ADSL users that the monopoly privilege given to SLT is preserved and carefully protected by two members of an old boy’s association of a school hailing from Raja Rata one a senior engineer of the SLT ADSL unit and other a senior political appointee in the TRC These two together with some vendors of modems are preventing the local loop being given to other prospective ADSL service providers who could not only offer ADSL service at much lower price but also provide the ADSL modem and mail boxes x free of charge

It is high time that this time of corrupt practices are investigated by the COPE and the Bribery Commissioner
and the culprits brought to justice In view of the report published in Sunday Time I am sending this mail to the Sunday time an also the DGT asking why he too issued this queer directive contrail to accepted regulatory norms,

Samit S

We can get a self served 512MB RAM windows host for USD 69 and Linux for USD 49. SLT rates are 500 USD per month.
Who does not go US. SLT need to comedown to Sri Lankan rates which can be even cheaper as man power is low cost here.

I belive its the lack of strategy to capture own market.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), acting on complaints of poor quality ADSL lines for subscribers, has asked Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) to suspend the issuance of fresh ADSL lines until the services are upgraded.

TRC Director General Kanchana Ratwatte told The Sunday Times FT that the request was made to SLT last week to stop issuing new ADSL lines. “There have not been many complaints but there have been some and on my own, I have taken the initiative and done some testing here,” Ratwatte said. “I agree that the quality has deteriorated drastically over the last month or so.”

Ratwatte said the entry level package offered by SLT of Rs.1000 for an ADSL line has become increasingly popular.

“A host of customers have joined the ADSL bandwagon so more customers have been given this service but SLT has not improved the international backbone,” he stated. “It is not an expensive process and SLT has already initiated action and they wanted a fortnight from the first of July.” (NG)

Type http://sladsl.tripod.com/sltletter.gif in your browser.
sanath