The Impetus for Privatisation
The impetus to privatise came from many sources:

	Assembling an attractive infrastructure that would attract both foreign and private capital was an important factor. It was important that the country developed its communications infrastructure so as to be able to compete with other investment destinations. Communication services needed to be on par with the developed and newly developed world, and there was no indication that this would occur under state control.
	Technological advancement was another. Thirty years of dabbling with telecommunications had shown conclusively that the state was unable to provide a quality telecommunications service to the public of Sri Lanka. Public funds were inadequate to fund the required expansion and the injection of private funds was imperative. The technological advancements that other parts of the world had begun to savour, were being withheld from Sri Lankans, as a result.
	Accounting and billing systems were archaic and there was a need for more fluent procedures and the injection of rationality, in the process. Privatisation and a tie up with a global conglomerate was seen as a vehicle for turning a moribund state utility into a high performance communications operator.

The field of communications in Sri Lanka today, bears ample testimony to the success of our strategy - in a myriad products and services that access knowledge, business and human contact like never before.