In an interview with the Seychelles Business Nation news service, ATLAS systems manager, Mr Muditha Gunatilake, said: 'During the very short time of ATLAS existence, much has been done to widen Internet access in the country and with technology changing at a rapid pace, ATLAS has to keep up to date with new systems on the market.'

The Internet industry is fairly new to the Seychelles with the introduction of the world wide web appearing on the scene just five years ago in 1996. But ATLAS has been keen to make up for lost time and rapidly developed its operations. The company was the Seychelles' only ISP until last year when the market opened up to competition. 'The Internet is today playing a vital role in the daily lives of every Seychellois, and they are becoming more dependent on the net services,' said Mr Gunatilake.

The systems manager also said that ATLAS enjoys a very good record of being on-line more than 99 per cent of the time and upgrades were continually being implemented. The company is due to increase its bandwidth for incoming calls to 4Mbps, which will go a long way towards making the Seychelles one of the fastest hubs in the region on a per customer basis. It is also assessing other broadband opportunities and ways of speeding up Internet access with high-speed wireless and fibre optic technologies.

'In order to reach its ultimate goal of transforming Seychelles into a more advanced and educated nation, ATLAS will continue to invest in upgrading its systems and bandwidth as and when the demand increases,' said Mr Gunatilake.