Free Wi-Fi across Sri Lanka by 2016

Free Wi-Fi connections will be available across Sri Lanka by March 2016 under an agreement the government signed on Tuesday with multinational technology company Google, a media report said.

The service will be provided with the aid of Google loon, a technology which provides internet to large areas using high-altitude balloons, Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror reported.

The agreement in this regard was reached following a discussion held by State Minister for Defence Ruwan Wijewardene with Chamath Palihapitiya, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and considered as the richest Sri Lankan in the world.

Palihapitiya and several ministers later met President Maithripala Sirisena to present a report on the new technology.

With the instant approval of the president, an agreement between the state-owned Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and Google was signed at the prime minister's house in Colombo on Tuesday.