ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is in the process of amending its Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) Act to accommodate Starlink satellite system found by billionaire head of SpaceX and Tesla.
The island nation has already granted preliminary approval for Starlink to provide satellite-based internet services in the country, following a formal public consultation process. The move came after President Ranil Wickremesinghe met Musk in the sideline the 10th World Water Forum in Indonesia two months ago.
However, Sri Lanka’s TRC law has no provision to grant licence for a third party to operate telecommunication services.
The new amendment that will be presented in the parliament on Tuesday (09) will introduce infrastructure service licence, telecommunication service licence and cable landing station licence, State Technology Minister Kanaka Herath said.
“Starlink comes under the telecommunication service licence,” he told reporters at a media briefing in Colombo on Monday (08).
He said concerns about the new amendment have been already addressed by removing some clauses on the advice of the Attorney General (AG) Department.
“There were four requests from the AG Department. So, we have taken everything now and it went through the parliament oversight committee stage also,” Herath said when asked over the national security concerns arising from the new amendment.
“According to that we have done all the amendments and we are going to present it to the parliament tomorrow.”
The State Minister last month said Sri Lanka would be collaborating with Starlink to provide internet facilities via satellite technology, marking a significant transformation in the technology sector with a fast internet service.
Starlink is not yet established as a telephone network company in Sri Lanka.
The amendment will allow TRC to issue a Telecommunication Service provider license for Starlink.
Starlink is a low earth orbit satellite network, connected to Musk’s SpaceX group.
The network connects around 3 million people with high-speed internet across nearly 100 countries, territories and other markets. (Colombo/July 08/2024)