Sri Lanka Telecom’s ongoing replacement of traditional copper telephone lines with fibre-optic connections has raised serious questions over the substantial deposits paid by customers who obtained fixed telephone services long before fibre technology was introduced.
For decades, customers seeking a fixed telephone connection were required to pay deposits to SLT. Many of those subscribers have continued using their original copper connections for years, paying monthly charges and maintaining their accounts with the company.
Now, as SLT moves customers towards fibre technology, subscribers are facing a new financial burden. Existing copper-line customers being transferred to fibre are reportedly required to pay a migration charge of Rs.5,000.
Customers are questioning why they should have to pay an additional fee to migrate to a technology that the company itself is promoting as the replacement for the ageing copper network.
The controversy has intensified following the increase in the monthly rental charged for copper telephone lines. The charge, which was previously Rs.525, has been increased to Rs.730, placing additional pressure on customers who have retained their traditional fixed-line connections.
The move has left some long-standing subscribers with a difficult choice: continue using copper and pay the higher monthly charge, or migrate to fibre and incur the additional migration cost.
But behind this dispute lies a far larger financial question the fate of the deposits collected from subscribers over many years.
SLT’s 2025 financial statements disclose subscriber deposits amounting to Rs.516 million at Group level as at December 31, 2025. Of that amount, Rs.8 million is recorded under Sri Lanka Telecom PLC itself.
The published accounts, however, do not provide a clear breakdown showing how much of these deposits originated from traditional copper telephone connections. Nor do they clearly explain what has happened to deposits paid by customers whose copper services are now being replaced by fibre.
This raises several questions that SLT should answer publicly.What happens to the original deposit when a copper connection is converted to fibre?
Is the deposit refunded to the customer?
Is it transferred to the new fibre account?
If it remains with SLT, does the customer receive any interest accumulated over the years?
And why should a subscriber who already paid a substantial deposit to obtain a telephone connection be required to pay another Rs.5,000 simply to migrate from the old technology to the new one?
There is also an important service difference that customers say cannot be ignored. Traditional copper telephone lines can continue operating during a power failure, while fibre-based telephone services generally require electricity at the customer’s premises.
For elderly subscribers, businesses and households that depend on fixed telephone services during emergencies, this is a significant consideration.
The transition to fibre may be technologically necessary. But technological modernisation should not leave behind unanswered questions about money collected from generations of customers.
SLT has disclosed hundreds of millions of rupees in subscriber deposits in its accounts. Customers now deserve a transparent explanation of how those deposits are being treated as the copper network disappears.
The issue is therefore bigger than a Rs.5,000 migration charge.
It is about whether customers who paid first are now being asked to pay again—while the fate of their original money remains unclear.