Bharti Airtel to roll-out service in Sri Lanka by Dec

New Delhi, Oct 13: India's leading telecom operator, Bharti Airtel on Monday, Oct 13 said it expects to roll out services in Sri Lanka by December as inter-connection issues with local telecom firms are expected to be sorted out soon.

''We are on track to launch the services...Inter-connection issues have been nearly sorted out and the roll out is likely by December 2008...We find the regulator there extremely supportive,'' Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli told reporters on the sidelines of the South Asian Telecommunication Regulators' Council conference here. Bharti Airtel Lanka Private Ltd, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Ltd, had already announced plans to launch 2G and 3G services in Sri Lanka under the Airtel brand.

Also, it has signed a 150-million dollars deal with China's Huawei Technologies to set up a mobile phone network in the island country.

Earlier, Bharti had said it was facing problems in getting interconnection from the local operators in Sri Lanka.

UNI