Welcome Address: Mr Priyantha Kariyapperuma, Director General of Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka

Ayubowan! That is the traditional Sri Lanka greeting of welcome.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this gathering.

Venerable Thera;
Hon Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology;
Hon. Sellasamy, Deputy Minister of Posts & Telecommunications;
My dear friend, Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director of Telecommunications Standardization Bureau of ITU, Geneva Switzerland;
Mr. Marcel Belingue, Senior Manager, Programmes of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, London, UK;
Mr. Lasantha De Alwis, a Sri Lankan who is the Corporate Secretary of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, London, UK;
Mr. Paolo Rosa, ITU;
and Dr. Hans Wijesuriya, Chief Operating Officer, Telecom Malaysia and also the Chief Executive Officer, Dialog Group of Companies, Sri Lanka, who is our keynote Speaker today,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I warmly welcome you to Sri Lanka, the beautiful Island nation. We are very proud to have you with us, coming from countries from West Africa to Southern Africa, to Eastern Africa and from Europe to Far East, Papua New Guinea and Fiji from the Pacific and Europe and of course from Canada. We are also privileged to have with us a large number of distinguished invitees from Sri Lanka.

I welcome you on behalf of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka and also on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka to this key Forum. There is a history to this NGN Colombo Forum. I will be failing in my duties if I do not congratulate and thank the people who made it a possibility to hold this event in Colombo today; that is the ITU and the CTO. As was mentioned earlier, the ITU is the UN body comprising of over 191 member countries based in Geneva. It is the oldest UN Agency having been established in 1865. Last year in September, we made history in Sri Lanka when the Secretary General of ITU visited Sri Lanka on an invitation of the President of my country, His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa. The visit took place immediately after the Telecom Asia event in Bangkok Thailand where I was one of the invitees. At that long discussion the Secretary General commended the development of the telecommunications industry in Sri Lanka. In fact, he presented a medal in recognition of these advancements in the telecommunications industry.

Then, I met my friend Mr. Malcom Johnson in Geneva. In fact Mr. Johnson met His Excellency the President yesterday at Temple Trees. His Excellency wanted to pay a personal visit to meet all of you but due to his busy schedule he will address the Forum from his office. Yesterday’s meeting, held over for nearly one hour, was a platform for CTO and ITU officials to discuss about world standards in the context of Sri Lankan standards. I am proud to say that, as a country and as a nation, we have a state of the art network in telecommunications which is not second to any other nation in the world or even of any developed country. These officials are pleasantly surprised by the high speed HSPA and 3.5G access available in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is one of the first countries in the Asian region to offer 3G and 3.5G. The GSM network launched by Dialog about 14 years ago was the first time a GSM network was launched in South Asia. Recognizing the importance of GSM penetration in Sri Lanka, the GSM Association held their GSMA Asia Pacific Conference last year in Sri Lanka. In fact Sri Lanka holds the Chair for GSM Association, Asia Pacific Region. Today, you can enjoy even IPTV in our country. I will not mention details of these services offered by my operators in my country because we have made a very short film which you will see after the coffee break. Of course you will be able to experience Sri Lankan standards during your stay here.

Sri Lankan Government has launched a number of initiatives to ensure telecommunications access for all Sri Lankan people. Considering that Sri Lanka has a highly literate society, His Excellency the President named this year, 2009, as the ‘Year of ICT and English’ through which we aim to promote Sri Lanka as a Hub for research and development in Telecommunications.

As I mentioned earlier today we are making history here in another way as well. For the first time ITU and CTO are jointly organizing a seminar of this magnitude. I am sure Mr. Malcolm Johnson will comment on that later considering that CTO has over 40 member countries who are also members of ITU.

I will not recite all the countries represented here because I am sure that delegates during these four days will have an opportunity get to know each other. I hope that Sri Lanka, the capital Colombo, the great city of Kandy or any other city of this country will become the venue for future ITU and CTO events. Already we have planned two events other for this year. When Sri Lanka take over the chair of the South Asian Telecommunications Regulators Committee this year from India, we will host it’s meeting in coming October in Colombo. We are also having discussions with CTO to host an event of regional or international scale in Colombo or another part of Sri Lanka.

Once again, I welcome you as well as my invitees from the Government and the Private Sector to this event. I also take this opportunity to thank all the Operators and sponsors for their generosity whose websites can be accessed through the ITU website today. Further I thank ITU and CTO for selecting Colombo as the venue for this prestigious event. Finally I thank you for coming to Sri Lanka and I hope and pray that you will have a pleasant stay in Sri Lanka.

Thank you very much.Ayubowan! That is the traditional Sri Lanka greeting of welcome.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this gathering.

Venerable Thera;
Hon Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Minister of Science and Technology;
Hon. Sellasamy, Deputy Minister of Posts & Telecommunications;
My dear friend, Mr. Malcolm Johnson, Director of Telecommunications Standardization Bureau of ITU, Geneva Switzerland;
Mr. Marcel Belingue, Senior Manager, Programmes of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, London, UK;
Mr. Lasantha De Alwis, a Sri Lankan who is the Corporate Secretary of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, London, UK;
Mr. Paolo Rosa, ITU;
and Dr. Hans Wijesuriya, Chief Operating Officer, Telecom Malaysia and also the Chief Executive Officer, Dialog Group of Companies, Sri Lanka, who is our keynote Speaker today,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I warmly welcome you to Sri Lanka, the beautiful Island nation. We are very proud to have you with us, coming from countries from West Africa to Southern Africa, to Eastern Africa and from Europe to Far East, Papua New Guinea and Fiji from the Pacific and Europe and of course from Canada. We are also privileged to have with us a large number of distinguished invitees from Sri Lanka.

I welcome you on behalf of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka and also on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka to this key Forum. There is a history to this NGN Colombo Forum. I will be failing in my duties if I do not congratulate and thank the people who made it a possibility to hold this event in Colombo today; that is the ITU and the CTO. As was mentioned earlier, the ITU is the UN body comprising of over 191 member countries based in Geneva. It is the oldest UN Agency having been established in 1865. Last year in September, we made history in Sri Lanka when the Secretary General of ITU visited Sri Lanka on an invitation of the President of my country, His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa. The visit took place immediately after the Telecom Asia event in Bangkok Thailand where I was one of the invitees. At that long discussion the Secretary General commended the development of the telecommunications industry in Sri Lanka. In fact, he presented a medal in recognition of these advancements in the telecommunications industry.

Then, I met my friend Mr. Malcom Johnson in Geneva. In fact Mr. Johnson met His Excellency the President yesterday at Temple Trees. His Excellency wanted to pay a personal visit to meet all of you but due to his busy schedule he will address the Forum from his office. Yesterday’s meeting, held over for nearly one hour, was a platform for CTO and ITU officials to discuss about world standards in the context of Sri Lankan standards. I am proud to say that, as a country and as a nation, we have a state of the art network in telecommunications which is not second to any other nation in the world or even of any developed country. These officials are pleasantly surprised by the high speed HSPA and 3.5G access available in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is one of the first countries in the Asian region to offer 3G and 3.5G. The GSM network launched by Dialog about 14 years ago was the first time a GSM network was launched in South Asia. Recognizing the importance of GSM penetration in Sri Lanka, the GSM Association held their GSMA Asia Pacific Conference last year in Sri Lanka. In fact Sri Lanka holds the Chair for GSM Association, Asia Pacific Region. Today, you can enjoy even IPTV in our country. I will not mention details of these services offered by my operators in my country because we have made a very short film which you will see after the coffee break. Of course you will be able to experience Sri Lankan standards during your stay here.

Sri Lankan Government has launched a number of initiatives to ensure telecommunications access for all Sri Lankan people. Considering that Sri Lanka has a highly literate society, His Excellency the President named this year, 2009, as the ‘Year of ICT and English’ through which we aim to promote Sri Lanka as a Hub for research and development in Telecommunications.

As I mentioned earlier today we are making history here in another way as well. For the first time ITU and CTO are jointly organizing a seminar of this magnitude. I am sure Mr. Malcolm Johnson will comment on that later considering that CTO has over 40 member countries who are also members of ITU.

I will not recite all the countries represented here because I am sure that delegates during these four days will have an opportunity get to know each other. I hope that Sri Lanka, the capital Colombo, the great city of Kandy or any other city of this country will become the venue for future ITU and CTO events. Already we have planned two events other for this year. When Sri Lanka take over the chair of the South Asian Telecommunications Regulators Committee this year from India, we will host it’s meeting in coming October in Colombo. We are also having discussions with CTO to host an event of regional or international scale in Colombo or another part of Sri Lanka.

Once again, I welcome you as well as my invitees from the Government and the Private Sector to this event. I also take this opportunity to thank all the Operators and sponsors for their generosity whose websites can be accessed through the ITU website today. Further I thank ITU and CTO for selecting Colombo as the venue for this prestigious event. Finally I thank you for coming to Sri Lanka and I hope and pray that you will have a pleasant stay in Sri Lanka.

Thank you very much.