I was in Yangon last week and witnessed the NLD gain 43 out of 44 contested parliamentary seats in Myanmar’s landmark by-elections. It may give them less than 7% of seats in parliament but it is still highly significant. Myanmar has come a long way in 18 months from being an international pariah to being lauded by both Hilary Clinton and William Hague for its progress away from the authoritarian military regime that has ruled for 50 years.
Despite these political changes and international and internal optimism, when it comes to mobile telecoms, Myanmar faces huge challenges.
Mobile penetration in Myanmar currently stands at a staggeringly low 4.2%, making it one of the lowest in the world. The country’s only operator, the Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT), has struggled with underinvestment and slow economic growth. As a result development of mobile infrastructure has severely lagged behind its ASEAN neighbours. One of the major reasons for the poor penetration is prohibitive pricing; though the cost of a SIM has dropped from US$1500 to $200 over the last couple of years, it is still far too expensive for the majority of Burmese.
Any working mobile infrastructure needs a stable electricity supply yet, even in Myanmar’s largest city, the former capital Yangon, electricity is only available at six hour intervals. Walking down the street in central Yangon, I often found myself side-stepping the massive generators that obstruct the pavement and belch diesel fumes into the humid air. The electricity supply is even worse outside major urban areas.
When a natural disaster strikes, I wondered, how will the affected population and emergency services be able to communicate and organise an effective response?
Communications became a critical issue after Cyclone Nargis in 2008. The mobile phone network was not widely implemented in the hardest hit area of the Irrawaddy delta and the government slapped a ban on importing communication equipment (those who tried often had their equipment impounded). Instead, aid agencies were allowed to purchase a limited number of CDMA 450 MHz phones from the government, thanks to a donation of base stations and handsets from China. Since then, there have been some improvements but the network is still far from being extensive or robust and certainly cannot be relied upon in a disaster.
This may all be about to change. Potential Investors are now queuing up as the Myanmar government begins to issue investment incentives for foreign businesses. Recently the government announced that it plans to remove the monopoly held by the MPT and issue four licences; one to the MPT, one to the military and two for commercial networks. When this happens the cost of network access will probably be reduced and come within the reach of ordinary Burmese thereby prompting a rapid surge in mobile ownership outside the urban areas. The projected growth by Wireless Intelligence of one million additional connections in the next two years could be exceeded in a matter of months.
For disaster response and communications as a whole, this scenario presents exciting new opportunities. The new network providers can design networks that are efficient and consume as little power as possible in order to prevent even greater strain on the already over-loaded power grid. They could design stations with a high autonomy that will have increased resilience should disaster strike. Most importantly, an expanding network could reach rural areas hitherto cut-off from critical lifeline provided by mobile communications.