A4: (အင်တာနက်) ၀န်ေဆာင်မ, ေပးသNများ၏ ေထွြပားစံလ F င်မ,ကိF ကန်သ F ့ တ် ့ တ်သည့ ် ဥပေဒ၊ စည်းမျgးစည်းကမ်းများ သိမဟF 0 မ4တ ် စီးပွားေရး အတားအဆီးများ 34ိပါသလား။ (၀-၆ မ4တ)် A4: Are there legal, regulatory, or economic obstacles that restrict the diversity of service providers? (0–6 points) 0 Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because the military forced the sale of Telenor to a militaryaligned provider, consolidating its control over the telecommunications market. Civil society groups strongly criticized Telenor’s sale to Shwe Byain Phyu, raising concerns that the military will use Telenor’s network and data to identify members of opposition groups.66 The military directly controls two of Myanmar’s four service providers. In March 2022, the military forced Telenor to sell a majority stake to Shwe Byain Phyu, a company with close historical links to the military.54 Ooredoo sold its operations to a military-linked company in September 2022, after the coverage period.55 The only independent mobile service provider remaining at the end of the coverage period was the Qatari-owned Ooredoo, which reported 13 million subscribers as of October 2020.67 Although Ooredoo took a low profile since the coup started and benefited from the customer boycott of Mytel,68 it has likely employed the military’s surveillance technology.69 The military-owned operator Mytel, part of which is indirectly owned by the Vietnamese military, was licensed in 2017,56 and had approximately 10 million subscribers as of June 202057 before facing a consumer boycott.58 In February 2021, the military seized more direct control of state-owned MPT,59 which last reported having 24 million subscribers in early 2020.60 Telenor announced its intention to sell its Myanmar operations in July 2021, after receiving military orders to activate surveillance technology banned by European Union sanctions (see C5).61 Telenor sought to sell its local operations to Lebanese company M1 Group for $105 million.62 In March 2022, the military approved the sale on the condition that Shwe Byain Phyu hold an 80 percent stake in the local venture.63 Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was involved in the negotiations, and his daughter reportedly bought a stake in the local provider.64 Shwe Byain Phyu rebranded Telenor’s local operation as ATOM in June 2022.65 In September 2022, after the coverage period, Ooredoo signed an agreement to sell its Myanmar operations to Singapore-based Nine Communications, which is linked to the military through one of its parent companies.70 The military has not made significant attempts to seize control of fixed-line broadband providers but is heavily investing in marketing Mytel’s broadband services.71 Before the coup, the administration of licenses was generally regarded as fair and transparent, and external efforts to influence decisions were largely rebuffed.72 Deregulation in 2013 removed many of the legal and regulatory barriers to entry for internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile service providers, leading to a proliferation in the number of licenses awarded. At least 207 telecommunications licenses had been awarded by 2020.73 ် ပ်မ/ - ြမန်မာ2ိင 4 င ် ံ Free Expression Myanmar (FEM) and Freedom House - Freedom of the Net: Myanmar - အင်တာနက်ေပ*တွင် လွတလ