Chit Wai, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, said Myanmar would leapfrog in terms of technology to catch up with developed countries in the region.

“We can now say that our dream to see a fully-connected digital society is not far away. To bridge Myanmar to the future 5G digital world, the government will create a favourable environment for innovation and investment when 5G arrives,” he said. The official pledged to create a high-speed platform to improve infrastructure and build capacity to e-serve Myanmar citizens.

Currently, the mobile network has connected over 90 per cent of the population while the telephone density has reached 105 per cent, improving eight times from 2013 when only 13 per cent had a mobile phone. Now, 80 per cent of people in Myanmar have a smartphone, he said. According to the statistics, the national fiber backbone has reached 68,000 kilometres, and the international bandwidth is now 445Gbps, 15 times higher than five years ago.

“With these 5G readiness, we are now looking forward to enjoy the benefits of 5G to further boost our ambition. We aim to cover 50 per cent of the population with high speed internet access by 2020. Myanmar citizens should enjoy 100Mbps high speed internet in cities, and at least 20Mbps internet speed in rural areas,” he said.

He said the deployment of 5G networks will emerge between 2020 and 2030. 5G radio access will be built upon both new radio access technologies and existing LTE-based wireless technologies. Breakthroughs in wireless network innovation will also drive economic and social growth in entirely new ways.

“We will enhance the availability and boost the quality of our 4G network before the 5G era, to smoothly improve user experience from 4G to 5G ,” he said.

Myo Swe, deputy director general at the Posts and Telecommunications Department, discussed the three key challenges Myanmar must address in its digital transformation journey.

“Firstly, we must have a clear spectrum strategy. We need a harmonised, continuous and large spectrum band as well as efficient 5G oriented spectrum regulations. Secondly, our telecom sites should be ready before 5G arrives, including the site density, space and power, among others .

“The third challenge is that industry partners need to provide a mature ecosystem. Finally, operators and partners need to cultivate a business model to smoothly migrate from 4G to 5G,” said Myo Swe.

Myanmar will review and release the revised spectrum roadmap in the first quarter of 2019. Myanmar National Broadband Whitepaper will be released, and the second 5G forum will be held next year, he said.