Etisalat, also known as Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, acquired Sri Lanka's pioneering mobile operator Tigo last year for 207 million dollars as it saw growth opportunities in the South Asian country.
"We are investing 18.5 billion rupees (163 million dollars) to expand base stations with special emphasis on the north and east," Etisalat's Sri Lanka Chief Executive, Dumind Ratnayake told reporters.
The island's war-torn north and east have emerged as a lucrative hunting ground for business opportunities, after government forces crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels and ended 37 years of ethnic bloodshed last May.
Ratnayake said the network expansion would add 480 new base stations, taking the total to 1,580. Etisalat currently has nearly three million Sri Lankan customers, he said.
Besides Etisalat, the island's 15-million-user mobile market is mainly shared between Malaysia's Dialog Axiata, Mobitel Lanka, Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa and India's Bharti Airtel.
Sri Lanka telecom watchdog last week fixed a floor price of two Sri Lankan rupees (0.2 US cents) per minute for outgoing calls on mobile networks, after two years of stiff competition plunged the industry into massive losses.
The regulator said mobile phone operators reported a combined loss of 23 billion rupees (200 million dollars) in 2009, for the first time since cellular phones were introduced to Sri Lanka in 1989.
Ref: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iQcozR0TrSka6bfa6WLHJ4zCaq1A
AFP
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