Myanmar’s ICT ministry opens door for Internet infrastructure development

By on 17 Sep 2015

Categories: Development Tech matters

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Over the last couple of years, there have been significant changes to Myanmar’s telecommunications industry with deregulation and changes to its policy on media censorship. In June 2013, the Myanmar government awarded operating licenses to two foreign companies, which opened the door to Internet infrastructure growth in the country. The government has since emphasized its support for further development of the ICT industry with the launch of unlimited ISP licences, a broadband master plan and a national satellite program with the aim to increase teledensity from around 20% in 2014 to 75% in the 2015-16 financial year.

Against this backdrop, the Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications Ministry established a new Post and Telecommunication Department (PTD) to administer the regulatory function for Myanmar. To build the capacity of its staff, and learn best practices from international organizations, PTD invited APNIC and ICANN to provide training on Internet Resource Management (IRM), Routing, IPv6 and ccTLD Management.

APNIC’s Senior Training Specialist Nurul Islam delivered a one-day IRM and four-day Routing Fundamentals and IPv6 workshop to around 49 PTD attendees in total. The purpose of the workshop was to help PDT to effectively manage IP address and AS number delegation in Myanmar.

“The attendees were all enthusiastic and keen to improve their skills”, says Nurul. “They had a lot of questions about IPv6 addressing, specifically migration techniques, and IPv6 subnetting and routing”, he said.

The attendees also participated in hands-on lab exercises, where they learned how to configure and build a prototype ISP network.

ICANN’s Regional Security, Stability and Resiliency (SSR) Engagement Manager for the Asia Pacific Champika Wijayatunga delivered training on ccTLD management to around 14 attendees, to help them effectively manage the .MM ccTLD.

The newly created PTD is keen to collaborate with APNIC for future training as the requirements of their staff evolve. APNIC is looking forward to visiting Myanmar again.

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