Myanmar’s fourth telecoms licensee, Myanmar National Tele & Communications (MNTC), will operate under the ‘Mytel’ brand name and make use of existing telecoms infrastructure currently owned or used by sister company MECTel, Myanmar Times reports, citing the company’s external relations officer U Zaw Min Oo. MNTC is a joint venture of Vietnamese telecoms group Viettel, Myanmar National Telecom Holding – a consortium of eleven local firms – and Star High Public Company, a subsidiary of Myanmar military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), the latter of which also owns MECTel. At a press conference, the official revealed that Mytel would use MECTel’s existing infrastructure, previously reported to include 1,000 towers and more than 13,000km of fibre, although these claims could not confirmed.
In terms of its plans, Mytel will concentrate on extending 2G, 3G and 4G coverage in rural areas and seems to be considering an aggressive pricing strategy, with U Zaw Min Oo commenting: ‘Operators are racing [to compete] with price or services charges, so I think that we should reduce services charges [to be less] than other operators, although we cannot announce prices yet.’ According to the official, Mytel will also have access to the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE 1) submarine cable and as such ‘will not have to worry about internet bandwidth.’