8/22/22, 10:18 PM Myanmar: Freedom on the Net 2019 Country Report | Freedom House Myanmar has seen a proliferation of telecommunications licences awarded since 2013, when deregulation removed many of the legal and regulatory barriers to entry for internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile service providers. At least 137 telecommunications licenses had been awarded by the end of the coverage period, 40 and the share of subscribers using state-controlled mobile service providers briefly dropped below 50 percent during the coverage period. 41 However, the 2017 award of a telecommunication licence to the military-owned operator Mytel, and the comparative scale of Mytel’s investment since launching in 2018, has undermined the diversity of providers and reasserted the state’s dominance over the telecommunications market. Mytel is jointly owned by the Vietnamese-military-controlled company Viettel, a consortium of local firms, and Star High Public Company, which is owned by the Myanmar military’s Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC). 42 The MEC was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department between 2008 and 2016 for its role in the human rights violations committed by Myanmar’s military. 43 Mytel operates using the telecommunications infrastructure owned by MECTel, which is also owned by the MEC. 44 Some activists have called for a boycott of Mytel due to the company’s connections with the military and human rights violations. 45 In 2018, the European Union considered applying sanctions to Mytel in response to the military’s human rights abuses in Rakhine, Shan, and Kachin states. 46 Mytel launched its 4G-only service in February 2018, 47 and had reached five million subscribers by 2019. 48 It joined three other mobile service providers in Myanmar, all of which are owned by the Myanmar government or foreign governments. 49 Two foreign mobile service providers, Telenor and Ooredoo, have market shares of 32.3 percent and 17.1 percent respectively as of the third quarter of 2018. 50 The state-owned MPT continued to shrink to a 47 percent market share by the third quarter of 2018. Other providers that have received telecommunications licences include a mixture of national and local fixedline and mobile services. For example, Amara Communications, owned by a large domestic conglomerate, launched in May 2018 and provides a data-only service using MiFi boxes, including in Yangon, where it had already installed 300 towers by March 2018. 51 The Global Technology Group launched wireless broadband in 30 cities beginning in May 2018. 52 The administering of licences is generally regarded as fair and transparent, and external efforts to influence decisions have been largely rebuffed. 53 Once given a licence, however, obstacles to operating effectively remain. Telecommunications providers have raised concerns about restrictions on building new towers, 54 and local government officials have stressed the need for providers to obtain permits to lay fiber-optic cables, build towers, and install Wi-Fi devices. 55 A5 0-4 pts Do national regulatory bodies that oversee service providers and digital technology fail to operate in a free, fair, and independent manner? 1/4 Myanmar’s regulatory bodies remain vulnerable to political interference and lack transparency. The MoTC’s Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD) is responsible for regulating the telecommunications sector. Under previous governments, the PTD was the regulator and a monopoly service provider for the telecommunications sector. These roles have now been separated, with the PTD acting as the regulator and the MPT acting as the state-controlled service provider. The PTD’s responsibilities include issuing and renewing telecommunications licenses, regulating the frequency https://freedomhouse.org/country/myanmar/freedom-net/2019 5/20