Thursday, 18 February 2010 11:49 Khai Suu
New Delhi (Mizzima) - Businesses in Rangoon reliant upon the Internet in the conduct of their daily activity are facing increased hardship with the slowing down of connection speeds since late last month.
Traders, those in the media business as well as students have been hard hit by the downturn, which the complaint department at Myanmar Teleport, under Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), told Mizzima is being caused by ongoing maintenance work on their BMF server.
"Online business is the economy for us. We work with the time sensitive inflow and outflow of goods and fluctuations in price quotations. In international business, communication must be accurate and precise. When the Internet connection slows down, we have to use faxes and phones, which delays our business and sometimes even causes business activity to fail,” a beans and pulses exporter in Rangoon explained to Mizzima.
Rangoon-based magazines and journals are also suffering, as the Internet is critical in their timely reporting of news and events.
"We have to find the latest sports news on the Internet for our journal. Our work is much delayed due to this slow Internet connection, as we cannot write news and reach our audience on time,” a reporter from a weekly sports journal told Mizzima.
An international news reporter added, "We are in trouble with this slow connection. It takes much time to open news websites. Sometimes we cannot open them at all. In downloading pictures too, it takes much time. We have to report this news to our audiences on time. Now we are in much trouble.”
And students too are facing difficulties in the pursuit of their education stemming from slow Internet speeds.
"Most of the Internet users in Burma use the Internet for chatting and social websites for communication with their lovers. But we are using the Internet for our study. We search papers on the net and read reference books for our theses. When the connection is slow, we have to wait. It wastes our time and money," said a female zoology student from Rangoon University.
Additionally, some Internet cafes have been forced to limit hours or close doors due to a decline in the number of users owing to slow connectivity.
"Many users don't come when the connection is slow. And at the same time power failures are frequent and long. It is uneconomical for us to run the generator for only a single user. So we close our cafe when the power is out and reopen when power is restored," remarked a staff person from an Internet cafe on Pansodan Street.
Similarly, an Internet user in Mergui, Tenassarim Division, said, "We use IP Star. It's totally not working. It frequently gets dropped every five minutes. The users don't come when the connection is slow. The Internet cafes are hard hit in their revenue.”
MPT provides various Internet services in ADSL, dial-up, Wi Max, IP Star and broadband services to nearly 60,000 customers, according to estimates from the Burmese Ministry of Communication.
Friday, February 19, 2010
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