Telenor and Ooredoo each reported having constructed three international
connections to Thailand and China by 2016; Telenor was working on a fourth, to India.
13
A spokesperson for the company rated its dependence on MPT at 10 percent in a
2016 interview with Frontier Myanmar; Ooredoo declined to make a similar estimate.
14
Other developments are making the international connection more resilient. In
January 2017, the installation of an onshore link to the undersea cable SEA-ME-WE 5
was completed as part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications’ 100-Day
Plan. 15 This provided an alternative to the SEA-ME-WE 3 cable, as well as satellite and
cross-border cable links with China and Thailand, which had been exclusively
controlled by MPT before 2014. 16 Myanmar’s first private undersea internet cable,
the Myanmar-Malaysia-Thailand-International Connection (MYTHIC), 17 is being
developed by the Singapore-based cable company Campana Group and is scheduled
to be activated in 2018. 18 Another new submarine cable will connect Bangladesh
with Myanmar. A May 2017 news reports said it would take six months to lay the cable
under the sea from Cox's Bazar to the coastal city of Sittwe. 19
The developments have yet to transform internet use for many people, and low
bandwidth continues to cause congestion. Power outages also frequently disrupt
access. 20
ICT Market
State-owned conglomerates continued to skew the market in 2017, through MPT and
a fourth major telecommunications operator run by a military-linked joint venture,
which was granted a license during the reporting period.
The government announced plans to privatize MPT in 2012, but they have yet to
materialize. News reports said a fifth official meeting to discuss privatization was held
in April 2017. 21
In 2013, the government awarded international licenses to Norway’s Telenor and
Qatar’s Ooredoo, allowing them to offer services and infrastructure alongside MPT.
22 Military-linked Yatanarpon Teleport (YTP) was also allowed to run as a local
operator, one of more than a dozen ISPs that offer service without peering with
international carriers. 23