If I remember correctly, the deal was Rs. 90 million (USD 900,000 then) to provide VSAT links to 100 Nenasalas. Amounts to Rs. 75,000 (USD 750) per month per tele-centre. Perhaps the world’s highest tele-centre connection charges ever.

As Milton Friedman correctly put it, there is no incentive for anyone to take extensive care when spending someone else’s money to a third party.

But forget history, lets see what we can do now.

Really? I wonder why there aren’t separate mobile pricing schemes for provinces then.

[We operate in a market system driven by profit, maybe you ought to vote for the communists next time….]

Nobody ask free and subsidized services. Offer a fair deal. What other service costs 32 times in Gampola than in Colombo?

As for markets: All Nenasalas are bound to 128 k by ICTA, which covers the bill fully the first year and then go on reducing proportionately. Operators were selected in a pseudo-competitive process (3 were selected instead of one) to provide services in bulk which ICTA ‘re-sells’ to Nenasalas after the first year. Nenasalas are not free to select their own operator.

Is that what you call a market? It seems to me more like creating scarcity.

Well, just yesterday I discovered the opposite of this story. It will come shortly. Then we can discuss both.

And learn Asia,
We operate in a market system driven by profit, maybe you ought to vote for the communists next time….