Mytel, the most recent entrant to Myanmar’s mobile market, has already invested more than USD1 billion in infrastructure and has deployed 5,000 base transceiver stations and rolled out 30,000km of fibre-optic cable, the Myanmar Times cites head of external relations U Zaw Min Oo as saying. According to the official, the operator is targeting a spend of USD2 billion over its 15-year licence period and has already reached half of that target, with a further USD80 million earmarked for corporate social responsibility projects. Despite the progress, the official explained that it was falling short of expectations: ‘Network readiness hasn’t reached the level we expected, so we had to install more BTS to maintain bandwidth.’ The Chief External Relations Officer went on to say that the company had signed up more than a million subscribers as of 9 June, despite having stated earlier this month that Mytel’s customer base was around 100,000 users.
The official also seemingly contradicted Mytel’s previous statements regarding its network, suggesting that the system also offered 2G services, rather than being 4G-only. ‘We studied the types of users and found that there are two: voice and data,’ Mr Zaw Min Oo said, adding: ‘The former are satisfied with 2G and the latter with 4G. For data users, the price is cheaper for 4G.’