Slow internet has nothing to do with service transfer: Official

by Nam Davies

Monday, 25 August 2008 18:59

The slow speed of the internet provided by the 'Myanmar Post and Telegraph' (MPT) Ministry has nothing to do with the service being transferred to the 'Myanmar Teleport', an official from the Communication Department said. "The slow speed of the internet has nothing to do with the transfer of service. It is because of telephone landlines. If a landline has several connection nodes the speed will fall," an assistant manager of MPT said on condition of anonymity. A rumour has spread that the internet speed has become significantly slow because the service is being shifted from the MPT to Bagan Cyber Tech-turned-Myanmar Teleport, which is laying fiber optic cables from Kemmendine jetty to other areas along Prome Road. An official from the MPT, however, denied this. The authorities invited three experts from China to Naypyitaw (the new capital) to modify and upgrade the servers used in Burma while the service provider is being shifted from the old to the new. "Yes, it's true. We are working in tandem with Indian and Chinese companies. But I don't know about Russian companies. A few Chinese companies are working here. We need their technology so we are working with them," an official from MPT admitted. Eyewitnesses, howvere, said that two Russian experts are working daily at the new service provider 'Myanmar Teleport' to curb the use of proxy servers by internet users to bypass internet censorship. Users are facing many difficulties as there are disruptions in connections, it takes more time while both uploading and downloading and opening new free G-Mail accounts. "Yes, it's been two weeks since the internet has slowed down. It takes too much time to open the mail and it is difficult to send photo files. We could not open new G-Mail accounts. The speed dropped as soon as we tried to open new mail accounts," said a person from a cyber café providing training to internet users who wished not to be named. "We are facing difficulty during training in internet as we cannot open new accounts. The trainees cannot practice. So we loaned two or three old accounts from other persons," he added. His cyber café is a customer of Bagan Teleport. An official from Bagan Teleport responded to the question on inability in opening new free G-mail accounts saying: "Opening new G-mail accounts has nothing to do with Bagan Net. These are free accounts. It may be due to the current slow connection speed. We are not providing service on G-mail accounts. It has nothing to do with the service providers," he said and added that it is neither due to the current service provider transfer. But young internet users in Rangoon said that the authorities are making it difficult on use of proxy servers to bypass and visit free mail accounts servers.  < Prev   Next >