Telenor Myanmar last week hosted its sixth Net Monday with guest speakers from Samsung Myanmar. More than 150 mobile enthusiasts attended the monthly event which discussed how to make mobile internet in Myanmar more accessible.
Panelists at the event said creation of local content is the key to improving internet penetration in Myanmar, while healthy competition in the industry will benefit consumers.
Telenor Myanmar CEO Petter Furberg said, “This is the first time in history internet is more important than voice service when building a mobile network.
“Telenor’s first priority is to build a network for all when we launch in September. Telenor also plans to provide mobile services to those who are not connected at the moment.
“This is also a concept behind providing both 3G and 2G network for Myanmar. 2G handsets are considerably less expensive than 3G devices. Affordability is key in providing service to the mass market. Any GSM phones will work with Telenor SIM cards and we will have millions of SIM cards to ensure availability so no one should pay more than K1500.”
Furberg said creating local content is very important and the telecoms firm is working on a couple of initiatives in areas such as education with Wikipedia Zero and an Executive MBA program, mobile health services (mHealth) with Marie Stopes International Myanmar, and financial services – money transfer of both local and abroad.
South Korea’s Samsung, the world’s number one device manufacturer, recently signed an agreement with Telenor to work together in Myanmar for Telenor’s September launch of mobile services.
The companies will partner in the development of joint market offerings, affordable device bundles and promotional activities in the future to enhance mobile internet accessibility in Myanmar, Telenor said.
Samsung Myanmar Head of HHP Channel Ko Zarni Win Htet said Samsung has recently worked together with University of Computer Science Yangon (UCSY) to give better education on information and technology.
The partnership is called Samsung Tech Institute and a group of selected students will be given the opportunity to learn the android operating system and enhance the mobile application design and development on Android platform and create many useful local contents and apps.
“Samsung is also working very hard to provide local language stability in their devices. Samsung is developing a device that can support both Unicode and Zaw Gyi font systems for user preference. Samsung Myanmar and Telenor Myanmar will provide device bundles tailored for Myanmar.”
