What we are
Dialoq is a small editorial project based in Colombo. We read the public plan listings published by Sri Lanka's four licensed mobile operators — Dialog Axiata, SLT-Mobitel, Hutch, and Airtel Lanka — and we publish reviews and explainers that translate those listings into plainer prose. The site has been operating since the middle of 2023. It currently carries eight pieces in print: four operator-level reviews and four thematic explainers.
We are not a sales channel. You cannot subscribe to a plan through this website. We do not handle activations, SIM dispatch, plan changes, or any operator-side transaction. We do not have an operator portal. We do not have a partner-affiliate code. We have no commercial relationship of any kind with any of the four operators we cover. For everything that involves money changing hands — eligibility, current pricing, KYC, port-in, or activation — readers should approach the operator directly through their official channels.
What we do, and only what we do, is read what the operators publish on their websites and explain it.
Why "read first, then decide"
The mobile-operator websites in Sri Lanka are, in our editorial view, reasonably difficult to read. A typical data-plan listing for any of the four major networks contains a dozen line items, three or four superscript footnotes, and at least one paragraph of 11-point grey text at the bottom of the page. The information is technically all there, but the public-facing presentation is denser than it needs to be. For an English-reading subscriber trying to understand what a plan actually contains, the labour required to assemble that understanding from the operator pages alone is considerable.
The premise of this site is that there is value in slowing that reading down. We sit, as a desk, with the operator's own listing on one screen and a draft document on another, and we walk through the listing line by line. Where a footnote applies, we move it inline. Where a unit is ambiguous (do those data MB count against the off-peak allowance or the all-day one?), we look at the operator's terms and conditions and resolve the ambiguity. Where a price has changed since our previous review, we update the figure and note the date.
The result is, we hope, a more useful presentation of the public information than what the operators themselves currently publish. It is, importantly, not a substitute for the operator's listing — and we say so in the notice that appears at the head of every review. It is a reading aid, written by readers, for readers.
Where we are based
The editorial desk is in Colombo, on Bagatalle Road in Colombo 03. The four editors are all based in Sri Lanka — three in Colombo and one in Kandy. We meet, when we can, at the desk. We talk, otherwise, on the same email threads as we did in the publication's first month. There is no London office, no Singapore office, and no remote-freelancer arrangement. The publication is the four named editors and nothing more.
Editorial policy in summary
Our full editorial policy is on a separate page, linked from the foot of every review. The condensed version:
- Independence. No sponsorship, no affiliate revenue, no commission on subscriptions, no commercial relationship with any operator.
- Original work. Every review is written by the named editor whose byline appears on it, on the basis of a personal close reading of the operator's current public listings. We do not aggregate, we do not rewrite press releases.
- Fact-checking. Plan figures are reproduced as the operator publishes them on the date in the byline. Where we cite a number, we link to the operator's listing where one is publicly available, and the figure carries the date on which it was checked.
- Corrections. When you find an error, please write to [email protected]. We aim to acknowledge within two working days and to update the relevant review with a dated note at the foot of the piece.
- No AI-generated content. Every sentence on the site is written and revised by a human editor.
The team
Four editors and contributing writers, all based in Sri Lanka:
Chamath Perera
Chamath read Economics at the University of Colombo and worked for several years as a researcher on the LIRNEasia telecommunications policy team. He covers operator-level reviews and the wider sector for Dialoq.
Nadeeka Fernando
Nadeeka is a former technology reporter for a Colombo daily and has been writing about the Sri Lankan mobile sector since 2014. She edits the explainer desk at Dialoq and contributes operator reviews.
Ruwan Jayasinghe
Ruwan is a Kandy-based independent technology journalist with fifteen years' experience covering consumer telecommunications across South Asia. He contributes to Dialoq on operator pricing and data-plan structure.
Shalini de Silva
Shalini covers the sector from the perspective of visitors and short-term residents. She has written about regional roaming, eSIM availability, and the airport-counter SIM market in Bandaranaike, Colombo, and the Matale region.
How the project is funded
Out of pocket. The running costs of the publication — a domain, hosting, occasional travel within the country to the operator stores in Kandy, Galle, or Jaffna — are met by the editorial team itself. We have received no grants, no sponsorship, and no support from any operator, regulator, or government agency. We do not run advertising and have no plans to introduce it.
We mention this only because readers occasionally ask. The structure of our funding matters: it is the reason we feel free to write about the operators exactly as we read them.
Our relationship with the operators
None. We are subscribers, like any other Sri Lankan resident. We pay our own bills on our own SIMs. We do not request press passes, media briefings, or privileged access to operator data rooms. Where, on rare occasions, we have written to an operator's PR desk for clarification on an ambiguous line item — never for a quote we intended to publish — we have identified the request as coming from Dialoq and noted the response in the relevant review.
The operators, in our experience, are aware of the publication. None of them has, to our knowledge, attempted to influence the line of a review.
Errors and corrections
We try hard to be accurate, but errors happen. The mobile sector changes plans without notice. A figure that was correct on the day a review was published may not be correct three months later. When you find an error — a misquoted price, a misread footnote, an obsolete plan name — please write to [email protected]. We aim to acknowledge correction emails within two working days and to update the review within 48 hours of verification.
Why "Dialoq"
The name of the publication is a quiet pun on the English word dialogue, with the final syllables compressed and the spelling deliberately altered to make it clear that the publication is not the operator of the same first three letters. We are not Dialog Axiata; we have no relationship with Dialog Axiata; we review Dialog Axiata as one of the four operators we cover, alongside Mobitel, Hutch, and Airtel. The name is meant to gesture, gently, at the fact that what we are doing on the site is reading what the operators have published — and writing back, in clearer prose, for the benefit of readers who cannot easily decode the original.
For questions, corrections, or simply to say hello, the desk is reachable at [email protected].