MYANMAR IS SLOWLY GETTING CONNECTED
Fun, work and politics are all part of the nascent online culture in Myanmar — and today, like other countries, it’s hard to escape the site of young men and women flashing the latest smartphones, tablets and connected gadgets.
But the state-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) is still the country’s sole telecoms provider, despite a recent tender awarded to two internationals and promises of corporatisation on the horizon. Fiercely tied in with government operations, MPT also compiles the country’s internet and telecoms statistics.
According to MPT, Myanmar had a total of 5.44 million mobile subscribers as of December, 2012. MPT state this represents a 9% rate of penetration. Higher penetration rates are concentrated in urban areas, with a 30.2% penetration rate in the capital Nay Pyi Taw, 25.3% in the commercial centre Yangon, and 11.7% in upcountry hub Mandalay.
Aung Aung Myat, 23, uses the internet on his mobile — which costs two kyat (less than one satang) a minute — to browse local news and chat with friends. Since opening up a Facebook account half a year ago the bank employee has 50 friends.
MPT statistics as of March, 2011, indicate that there were a total of 380,000 internet subscribers compared to only four in 1998.
Thu Htet Zaw, a 21-year-old mobile phone repairer, spends nearly his whole day on the internet seeking new applications for phones because the data is ‘‘so slow to load’’.
Some, like two 25-year-old female software engineers who asked not to be named, use the internet both on their smartphones and on their PCs to send email, read the news and share posts on Facebook.
There were around one million PCs in the country as of May, 2012, compared with only 430,000 in 2006, according to data compiled by the Myanmar Computer Industry Association.
7Day News, a daily newspaper, began publishing comments from Facebook in April this year, when daily licences were awarded to some print media for the first time in decades. Each day, its Facebook page usually hosts three discussions ranging from political criticism, to natural disasters and celebrity gossip.
The page is the most ‘‘liked’’ in Myanmar, with some 320,000 fans. 7Day maintains a policy of not publishing ‘‘extreme comments’’ from the page.
The journal employs about 30 reporters, the oldest being 40 years old — but most are under 30, with one reporter having nearly 30,000 followers on Facebook.
Aye Mya Kyaw, a 27-year-old reporter at the journal, says that although youth engagement in politics shows optimism for reform, the demographic is often emotional, lacks knowledge and have substituted reading books with social media.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s Journal of Human Rights and Democracy engages social media to request articles from young scholars and writers. The academic journal is sold at 1,500 kyat and runs academic analysis and critiques.
‘‘We are more willing to pave the way for the younger generation,’’ says its 32-year-old editor Wai Yan Phone.
‘‘The advantage of the younger generation is that they have the chance to look at interesting issues online, even though they mostly use Facebook for fun. You can’t run away from other people’s posts. Even though youth aren’t interested in politics, they’re still reading shared posts about politics and gaining knowledge about political issues.’’
Wai Yan Phone says that access to the internet is not democratic salvation for Myanmar — it’s a means to it.
‘‘When you look at the history of some countries changing from an authoritarian to a democratic system, there might have been no internet at that time.
‘‘It was only the power of people that made the change. Now, only the will of the people can restore democracy.’’