YANGON, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Telecom International Myanmar (Mytel), the fourth telecom operator in Myanmar, has begun service since the weekend, Myanmar News Agency reported Monday.
Mytel, jointly conducted by Myanmar and Vietnam, represents the only public company among four telecom operators in the country.
Provided with 2G and 4G systems, Mytel has installed 30,000-km fiber cables nationwide to enable provision of 50 percent of the whole fiber optic infrastructure across Myanmar.
The network can cover over 300 towns or 80 percent of the total population.
Mytel is a joint venture of a local consortium comprising 11 private firms and Vietnam's Viettel.
The prior three telecom operators include a local one, Myanmar Posts and Telecommunication (MPT), and two foreign ones -- Ooredoo and Telenor introduced successively over the past five years.
According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, mobile phone usage rate increased to over 110.43 percent so far in Myanmar from 86.2 percent in 2016.
Meanwhile, the number of mobile subscribers in the country reached over 56.8 million in fiscal year 2017-2018, increasing by over 500,000 subscribers while there were 56.3 million mobile subscribers in fiscal year 2016-2017.
Of the prior three established telecom operators in the country, MPT topped the list with over 29 million subscribers including auto telephone subscribers, followed by Telenor with 19.5 million subscribers and Ooredoo with 8.3 million subscribers.
The Myanmar government received over 2.2 billion U.S. dollars' spectrum usage fees from mobile operators as of April 2018.
