
Telecommunication in Sri Lanka
Compared to the United States, Sri Lanka is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +94, there were a total of 33.63 million connections in 2021. Among them were 30.76 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.4 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 9,552 webhosts, Sri Lanka is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 8,422 of these, or about 88 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Sri Lanka
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 20.03 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Sri Lanka ranks 130th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 4.8 Mbit/second was significantly lower (157th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, Sri Lanka comes 120th with a download speed of 14.71 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 6 Mbit was only enough for 135th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in December 2022 from 178 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in Sri Lanka from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in Sri Lanka 2001 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | Sri Lanka Total | Sri Lanka percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 2.59 m | 11.67 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 2.87 m | 12.95 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 30.76 m | 138.85 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |