Airtel set to start Sri Lanka operations

Come 2008 and the burgeoning Sri Lankan mobile phone sector will be seeing a prominent fifth player — the Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel.

With an investment of $200 million, Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt) Limited would begin its service in the island ‘early next year‘, its CEO Amali Nanayakkara said.

"We are in the process of setting up the network, and getting the necessary approvals from the regulatory authorities. The process, which began in the middle of the current year, should be competed by early 2008," Nanayakkara said.

Asked if Bharti Airtel Lanka had run into any problems, as the services were yet to start though the investment was announced with much fanfare in mid 2007, she said there were no problems.

Read more,
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/business/2007/