Sri Lanka’s second international airport, the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA) commenced operations with the landing of a national carrier flight on the airport’s opening date with HE the President of Sri Lanka on board. Following three decades of strife, the Sri Lankan people as well as the economy are today reaping the benefits of freedom. Sri Lanka has an unprecedented economic growth potential. The Government’s ambitious vision to reach USD 4,000 per capita income by 2016 and a USD100 billion GDP economy is one that is shared by Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) as well. As the national telecommunication service provider, the company is well focused towards this goal, and will play a major role in contributing towards the achievement of the projected national growth momentum. The company sought to provide best-in-class telecom support to empower and facilitate the efficient functioning of the primary activities of the airport from its very first day of operations. The new international airport is expected to expand the local aviation industry whilst being a catalyst for the country’s economic development enabling increased international trade, tourism and also to create employment. SLT made everything possible by providing the digital connectivity to reach beyond borders, both physically and digitally. Commenting on the ICT infrastructure and communication services provided to the MRIA, Group CEO of SLT, Lalith De Silva said, “SLT is proud to be an important part of the country's economic development strategies by providing the MRIA with the most reliable and state of the art communication infrastructure enabling Intelligent Solutions and the company's flagship triple-play offers: Telephone, Broadband & PeoTV”. Adding further he said, "We aim to create value for our country's economy and new airport by providing them with all the benefits of enhanced ICT services, thereby creating a more conducive atmosphere for local and international companies to do business". SLT has already completed its solid and reliable fibre optic and Ethernet based network infrastructure with a Ring Architecture for IP backbone to enable unified communication services to facilitate voice, data and multimedia applications. The intelligent communication solutions built on SLT's communications backbone and its state-of-the art Data Centres, allows most mission critical real-time data and multimedia applications, such as IP Telephony, Video Surveillance unified applications and data hosting requirements. SLT’s total communication solution will facilitate all the MRIA commercial partners including Airport & Aviation Services (SL) Limited, Sri Lanka Custom, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Bank of Ceylon, Peoples Bank, Foreign Employment Agency (or Bureau), State Intelligence Service, Sri Lanka Air Force, Immigration & Emmigration, SriLankan Airlines and Sampath Bank. Furthermore, the Sri Lankan Airlines office in the MRIA has also been given an IP voice-data integrated solution as a managed service. Mr. Kiththi Perera, Chief Enterprise & Wholesale Officer of SLT, said "The development of Sri Lanka’s ICT infrastructure would go a long way in developing a closer relationship with large enterprises and small to medium sized businesses, which form a vital part of the economic development. We assure MRIA of our utmost commitment to provide the highest quality and most reliable services always and We aim to enhance our offerings through SLT Intelligent Solutions portfolio for the entire business segments, to help companies achieve higher productivity and operational efficiency". Success story of Katunayake BIA SLT is the exclusive total communication infrastructure and enhanced ICT services provider for the BIA, Katunayake for many years. Through SLT’s Intelligent Solutions, BIA and its commercial partners are now enjoying the advantages of proven, best-in-class communications technology. BIA Airport staff, commercial partners and travellers can use the facilities of the Unified Communications system over SLT’s Intelligent Solutions platform.