Edotco Services Lanka says it has commissioned 400 resilient power systems across Sri Lanka to strengthen telecoms network reliability and resilience during natural disasters and prolonged power outages.
The power systems have been deployed as shared infrastructure, supporting the island’s three mobile operators – Dialog Axiata, Hutch and SLT-Mobitel – to improve efficiency and reduce duplication.
Each system includes extended battery backup, rectifiers, standby generators, associated cabins, and alternate power modules, and is engineered with defined mean time to respond (MTTR) targets to enable rapid restoration during outages.
Edotco Sri Lanka said the initiative, announced just before Christmas, represents an investment of LKR500 million (around US$1.7 million) and aims to ensure service continuity at mission-critical telecom sites during grid failures, extreme weather events, and national emergencies.
The rollout comes in the aftermath of last month’s Cyclone Ditwah, which brought extreme rainfall and triggered severe flooding and landslides across the country, affecting 2.3 million people, and disrupting power and communications infrastructure.
Over 2,000 telecom sites were impacted by the storm, leaving several districts without mobile and data services for anywhere from two to five days. Edotco said network outages were mainly caused by prolonged grid power failures, fibre cut due to floods and landslides, site flooding in low-lying areas, and restricted access that delayed restoration efforts.
Edotco said it plans to scale the deployment to 1,000 sites by the middle of next year, investing a total of approximately LKR 1.2 billion.
“Cyclone Ditwah made it clear that power resilience is the weakest link in network continuity and we must change how telecom infrastructure is designed and operated” said Gayan Koralage, Country MD for Edotco Sri Lanka. “Power resilience is no longer optional. It is the backbone of national digital resilience.”
“The recent floods were a stark reminder that telecommunications is no longer just a commercial service – it is a national lifeline during emergencies,” said Air Vice Marshal Bandula Hearth (retd.), director general of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL). “Strengthening power resilience and redundancy at network sites is essential to safeguard public safety, emergency coordination, and economic continuity as climate risks intensify.”
