Colombo, Oct 29: Sri Lanka said today that cellphone users will not have to pay for incoming calls from January, as mobile telephone operators brace for an explosion in demand. "The government has approved the CPP (call party pays) system. It will go into effect from January," Communications Minister Imthiaz Bakeer Marker said at the official launch of the coverage expansion of Celltel, the country's first mobile phone operator.
Celltel, which is owned by Millicom, an international cellular operator, is rolling out its GSM (global system for mobile communications) coverage in anticipation of a surge in demand with the introduction of CPP.
Celltel Chief Executive Officer Dumindra Ratnayaka said the company was investing about four million dollars in increasing the coverage area and another expansion was lined up for an undisclosed amount.
"The cellular penetration rate in the country at the moment is about five percent, but we expect it to go up to 15 percent when CPP goes into effect," he said.
Sri Lanka's telecommunications regulator had accepted in principle moving to CPP from the present MPP, or mobile party pays system, under which incoming calls are also charged to the receiver of the call.
Sri Lanka was the first South Asian nation to introduce cellular phones in the late 1980s and there are over a million mobile phone users out of the 18.6 million population.
Bureau Report