67 Telecom Landscape Angelina (Fish net repairer, Mawlamyine) could not apply for SIM card under lucky draw system as she was not the native of the village so used PCO to call her relatives and to receive calls from them. She paid MMK 100 ($0.1) per minute for outgoing as well as incoming call. Whenever Tun’s (makes decorative umbrella, Mandalay) family needed to contact him, they called at neighbouring PCO shop. He had to pay MMK 100 ($0.1) per 3 minutes for an incoming call. Outgoing calls cost double of that and were reserved for special occasions. He recalled the last time he spoke to his sister was to discuss visiting celebrities. 5.7 CONCLUSION The cost of new connections had been a huge barrier in accessing mobile telecom services in Myanmar. In fact, SIM cards were priced around MMK 150,000-200,000 ($150-200) in the market (and it used to be about $ 500-600 a few years ago). Since Myanmar has only two denominations of top up cards, MMK 5000 ($5) and MMK 10,000 ($10) and even MMK 5000 ($5) is a considerable amount to spend. So even though they might spend that much in a month, they are unable to spread the expenditure over multiple days by purchasing lower denomination top up cards. MPT PCO booth