dominance over the telecommunications market. Independent media outlets have reported that Mytel provides the military with massive profits.67 Mytel is jointly owned by the Vietnamese militarycontrolled company Viettel, a consortium of local firms, and Star High Public Company, which is owned by the Myanmar military’s Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC).68 Mytel operates using the telecommunications infrastructure owned by MECTel, which is also owned by MEC.69 MEC was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department between 2008 and 2016 for its role in human rights violations committed by Myanmar’s military.70 In 2018, the European Union considered imposing sanctions on Mytel in response to the military’s human rights abuses in Rakhine, Shan, and Kachin States.71 Since the coup, many activists have called for a boycott of Mytel due to the company’s connections with the military and its human rights violations.72 Separately, Mytel and Viettel have both been found to engage in inauthentic behavior intended to malign competitors (see B5).73 Mytel launched its 4G-only service in February 2018,74 and had reportedly reached 10 million subscribers by 2020.75 It joined three other mobile service providers in Myanmar, all of which are owned by the Myanmar government or foreign governments.76 During the coverage period, two foreign mobile service providers, Telenor and Ooredoo, had 22 and 10 million subscribers,77 respectively, and a third provider, the state-owned MPT, had roughly 24 million subscribers.78 Other providers that have received telecommunications licenses include a mixture of national and local fixed-line and mobile services. For example, Amara Communications, owned by a large domestic conglomerate, launched in May 2018 and provides a data-only service using wireless broadband boxes, including in Yangon, where it had already installed 300 towers by March 2018.79 The Global Technology Group launched wireless broadband in 30 cities beginning in May 2018.80 Before the coup, the administration of licenses was generally regarded as fair and transparent, and external efforts to influence decisions were largely rebuffed.81 However, in 2020 the government reportedly threatened to cancel licenses unless their holders complied with demands to block websites, including news outlets (see B1).82 Telecommunications providers have raised concerns about restrictions on building new towers,83 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.84 A5: ဆက်သယ ွ ်ေရး ၀န်ေဆာင်မ1ေပး က&မjဏီများ[.င ့် ဒစ်ဂျစ်တယ် နည်းပညာကိ& ကွပ်ကဲေသာ [ိင & င ် ေ ံ တာ် စည်းမျhးစည်း ကမ်း ^ကီး8ကပ်မ1 အဖွဲမ W ျားသည် လွတ်လပ်၍ တရားမnတoပီး အမ.ီအ ခိ&ကင်းေသာ ပံ&စံြဖင့် လ&ပ်ငန်းေဆာင်ရွက်ရန် ပျက်ကွက်ပါသလား။ ၀ မ.တ် (၀-၄ မ.တ)် A5: Do national regulatory bodies that oversee service providers and digital technology fail to operate in a free, fair, and independent manner? (0–4 points) Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because regulatory bodies retain no independence following their takeover by military forces as part of the February 2021 coup. Myanmar’s regulatory bodies have reportedly been under the direct authority of the military since the coup. The MoTC’s Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD) is responsible for regulating the telecommunications sector. The PTD was once both the regulator and a monopoly service provider for the 0 telecommunications sector. These roles were separated a number of years ago, with the PTD acting as the regulator and MPT acting as the state-controlled service provider. The PTD’s responsibilities include issuing and renewing telecommunications licenses, regulating the frequency spectrum, addressing consumer protection, inspecting and supervising telecommunications providers, and carrying out any administrative actions against providers.85 The whole of the MoTC, including both the PTD and MPT, is reportedly now influenced by the military-controlled Free Expression Myanmar (FEM) and Freedom House - Freedom of the Net: Myanmar - အင်တာနက်ေပ*တွင် လွတ်လပ်မ/ - ြမန်မာ2ိ4င်ငံ - Page 8