4G or 5G for Sri Lanka? Why Rural Towers Still Start With 4G

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Whenever a minister talks about building 4G towers in the village, someone asks why Sri Lanka is not simply going straight to 5G. The question heated up politics and social media after Cabinet spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, commenting on the government’s planned rural telecommunication tower project, said the country cannot move straight to 5G and that a strong 4G network is the essential foundation for 5G.

According to circulating posts, some opposition politicians and social media activists asked why Sri Lanka was still spending public money on 4G towers when the world was embracing 5G.

Is Sri Lanka falling behind, or are there real technical and practical reasons behind the plan? We looked into it using the views of Madusha Ranawakage, a consultant engineer with 18 years of international telecom experience, and official data.

Is there no 5G in Sri Lanka?

Although some people may not know it, 5G has already been introduced in Sri Lanka. After the first spectrum auction held by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) in December 2025, 5G spectrum was officially awarded to Dialog and SLT-Mobitel (Ada Derana). Dialog has since launched commercial 5G services. It says the network started with more than 220 sites and has expanded to more than 800.

SLT-Mobitel runs a pre-commercial 5G network in Colombo, Kandy, Anuradhapura, Galle and Jaffna (Operator Watch, June 2026). It says it conducted South Asia’s first 5G trial in 2018 (SLT-Mobitel announcement). Only technical trials took place in Sri Lanka around 2018, but 5G is now a reality.

Why give villages 4G?

The saying “5G for cities, 4G for villages” needs a more scientific look. The main problem in rural areas is not internet speed but weak signal coverage.

Engineer Madusha Ranawakage pointed out that 5G, particularly on its higher bands, runs on high frequencies, so its signals travel relatively short distances. By his example, where four 4G towers can cover a rural area completely, 5G would need eight or more towers.

In his view, rural areas have very low population density and very few 5G-capable phones, so building 5G towers at high cost is not economically productive. He compared it to building a four-lane expressway for a village with only 10 or 20 vehicles. He said it is more practical to cover the whole country with 4G first, then fit 5G antennas to the same towers as needed.

So the claim that “4G is essential before moving to 5G” is only partly correct technically. The Non-Standalone (NSA) method, which adds 5G equipment to an existing 4G network, is bound by the limits of the 4G network. In the Standalone (SA) method, the 5G network is built separately from the 4G network, with its own 5G core (Belgian regulator BIPT).

Is 5G the solution to city congestion?

Urban areas face a different problem. Signals exist, but network congestion occurs when too many people use the internet at once. Madusha Ranawakage explained that in such cases, telecom companies often simply attach a 5G antenna to an existing 4G tower in the city.

Users with 5G-capable phones are then automatically directed to the 5G “lane”. Since this offloads traffic from the 4G network, ordinary 4G customers without 5G phones may also get better internet speeds.

Has the world abandoned 4G?

Many people assume developed countries have removed 4G entirely, but that is not the reality. Regional countries such as India, the Maldives and Bhutan have introduced 5G while continuing to run 4G networks alongside it.

By Madusha Ranawakage’s estimate, 4G is expected to remain in use worldwide for about another 20 years. He stressed that this is an estimate, not a fixed date. He also pointed out that 3G is the technology gradually being phased out, both globally and in Sri Lanka.

In December 2022, Dialog announced that it would shut down its 3G data network in 2023 and keep its 2G network for voice services (Dialog announcement). This also affects rural people who use basic keypad phones.

Difference between 4G and 5G

The difference between 4G and 5G cannot be explained by “is it faster or slower?” alone. Both can do a lot, but 5G offers higher speed, lower response time (latency) and the ability to connect many devices at once, so it suits new kinds of uses more easily.

What 4G can do: Most everyday internet activities can be done easily on 4G.

• Watching videos

• Using social media

• Making video calls

• Attending online meetings and classes

• Online banking and payments

• Maps and location finding

• Online gaming

• Downloading and sending large files

• Sharing a phone’s internet connection with other devices

• Connecting security cameras and various sensors

What 5G can do: The importance of 5G is not just “watching YouTube faster”. It is better suited to exchanging large amounts of data quickly, services that need very low response time, and connecting very large numbers of devices at once.

• Quickly transferring very large amounts of data

• Live streaming high-quality video

• Using virtual reality and augmented reality

• Controlling robots and automated equipment in factories

• Exchanging information between driverless vehicles and road systems

• Supporting remote medical services in hospitals

• Connecting a city’s traffic, street lights, parking and other equipment to each other

• Using sensors in agriculture to measure soil moisture, temperature and similar factors

• Connecting large numbers of devices and sensors in the same area at once

What do technologically advanced countries use 5G for?

China: factories, ports and healthcare

Areas where China uses 5G include factory automation. In one example in a GSMA report, a private 5G network connected equipment and ran machines automatically in the high-temperature, hazardous environment of a steel plant.

As a general example, cameras in a factory can inspect products and send the data very quickly to a computer system, where artificial intelligence can detect product defects. 5G connectivity can also serve autonomous robot vehicles that move goods from one place to another.

5G has also been used at ports to remotely control cranes and other equipment and to further automate warehouse operations. For example, in a six-month trial at China’s Qingdao port in late 2018, an automated ship-to-shore crane was operated from the control centre over a 5G connection and lifted a container (Ericsson, 2019).

The GSMA report also lists healthcare as a field where 5G is used.

South Korea: factories and cities

South Korea’s 5G technology is being applied to factory automation, driverless vehicles, advanced city services and digital healthcare.

When a factory camera detects a product defect, the information can be sent to the system very quickly, where artificial intelligence analyses it. The relevant machine or robot can then act on the result.

Autonomous vehicles can also carry goods from one place to another inside the factory. According to the US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, about 30,000 smart factories were operating in South Korea by 2024, and advances in technologies such as IT, 5G and sensors are reducing the cost of modern manufacturing.

Japan: robotics and remote healthcare

Researchers in Japan have also studied using 5G for robotic equipment and remote medical services, including a five-year validation study of the hinotori surgical robot system with 5G.

For example, trials have tested exchanging information over a very low-latency connection even when the doctor and the surgical robot were in different locations.

However, this does not mean such procedures can be done anywhere on an ordinary mobile connection. They also require specialised network facilities, security measures and legal compliance.

Driverless vehicles

5G’s low latency also allows fast information exchange between vehicles and road systems.

For example, when a vehicle ahead detects a sudden accident, it can quickly send that information to other vehicles or the road system, so other vehicles can be warned in advance.

So, what is the importance of 5G?

All this shows that 5G is not just a faster mobile internet connection than 4G.

4G lets people easily do daily tasks such as watching videos, using social media, making video calls and banking online.

Besides doing such tasks faster, 5G can provide the foundation for connecting not just people but large numbers of machines, robots, vehicles, cameras and sensors, and exchanging information between them quickly.

So, when discussing 5G in a country like Sri Lanka, it is important to look beyond phone internet speed to how the technology can benefit industry, ports, hospitals, transport, agriculture and modern city services.

Does 5G use up data faster?

Another common belief is that 5G data packages run out quickly. Technically, the amount of data you buy (for example, 10 GB) is the same whether you use it on 4G or 5G.

However, because 5G internet speed is very high, videos on platforms such as YouTube or Facebook may, depending on app settings, stream in high resolution (4K). This can use more data without you realising it.

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Conclusion

Sri Lanka’s question is not a simple choice between 4G and 5G. 5G is already here, awarded through the TRCSL spectrum auction and running on Dialog and SLT-Mobitel networks. The debate is about where each technology fits.

As engineer Madusha Ranawakage explained, a rural area first needs stable coverage, so the question is which technology provides it most cost-effectively. If a city’s 4G network is congested, the question is whether 5G can ease it. If industrial, IoT or low-latency services are needed in future, it also matters to have infrastructure such as 5G ready.

So both “4G is needed, so 5G is not” and “the world has moved to 5G, so 4G is no longer needed” are overly simple conclusions. What Sri Lanka needs is to deploy the right technology in the right way for different areas and needs.

Note: The technical explanations in this article are the expert’s views, and figures such as four or eight towers and 20 years are his illustrations or estimates.

Watch the full discussion: here