Boston, MA 04/05/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Every country wants to go wireless and the Myanmar has been flooded with the interest shown my operators and investors alike. Vodafone Group Plc (NASDAQ:VOD) (Current: $28.17, up by 0.32%), in conjunction with China Mobile will, both of who are biggies in the field, will be bidding for licenses in the Southeast Asian country. If these licenses are provided to them, the companies will have permission to create and operate a network that can cover the country for the next 15 years. After citing government documentation, Vodafone said that the name of the winning bidder will be announced on June27.
Boosting telecommunication by 70 percent
Till now the country has had under a 10 percent mobile coverage over the 64 million people in the country. The government announced that it wishes to boost the telecommunications coverage and expand it upto 80 percent by 2016. George Soros the billionaire has joined hands with Serge Pun the property developer and Digicel Group Ltd to put forth a bid for the license. The economic and social development in the country will also be benefited from this round of licensing. The economy in the country has shown promising growth and is expected to rise by 6.2 percent in 2013 said a World Bank report in October. In February the Myanmar government said that formal interest in the two licenses had been shown by 91 countries.
Phone services with over-the-top pricing
Very limited mobile services had been introduced into the country in 2001 and very few consumers have had access to mobile phones. At the onset, the cost of getting a mobile service activated was a prohibitive $5,120(4.4 million kyat) which has now dipped to around 200,000 kyat for the GSM SIM. This is till a very expensive proposition for most people. This week, MRTV, the state-run television station said that low-cost SIM cards will be available in the country within a month’s time. These cards are slated to be priced at 1,500 kyat. The objective is to offer customers in the rural and urban areas with inexpensive and easily accessible services. In addition to this there should also be a choice of telecommunication service providers.
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