As less site blocking takes place, bandwidth and internet speed become more vital for internet users. And cost. Oh ... and security is still needed.

[him] moderator

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Burma's Internet, Newly Opened, Slows to a Crawl
Sai Zom Hseng
Irrawaddy
Thursday, November 3, 2011

Internet access in Burma, a country that until recently blocked websites deemed to be a threat to state security, is now suffering another setback in the form of a technical problem that has slowed connection speeds in recent weeks.

According to Zaw Min Oo, the chief engineer of the country's Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs, the reason for the recent slowdown is a disruption in the SEA-ME-WE-3 underwater fiber-optic telecommunications cable that connects Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe.

Speaking to Rangoon-based reporters on Oct 21, Zaw Min Oo said that the problem was somewhere between Burma and Singapore and that technicians expected to locate it by Oct 25.

According to The Weekly Eleven, a Rangoon-based newspaper, Zaw Min Oo said that in addition to fixing the problem with the 39,000-km SEA-ME-WE-3 cable, officials are also planning to upgrade the country's STM-1 land telecommunications cables, which connect it to China and Thailand.

“We have already reached a financial agreement, but there are still some technical issues that we need to resolve before we can upgrade the land fiber cable with China,” he said, adding that the country currently has a 3.1 Gbps (gigabit per second) connection, but plans to increase this bandwidth to 5.7 Gbps in the near future.

The owner of an Internet cafe in Rangoon said that his customers frequently complain about receiving a message about the SEA-ME-WE-3 whenever they attempt to open an Internet browser.

“I called Yadanabon Teleport, my cafe's Internet provider, but they just said that they weren't sure why our connection was down. They said that other Internet cafes still had access, but that connection speeds were slow,” he said.

In September, Burma's government lifted a ban on sensitive websites, including those of Burmese exiled news groups, international news agencies and sites like Youtube. However, many Internet users continue to use use proxy sites to access some websites, such as Gtalk and Gmail.

A Rangoon-based blogger who spoke on condition of anonymity said that vague “technical problems” are often given as the reason for disruptions in Internet service, noting that in the past the Internet has even been shut down entirely during periods of political unrest—most notably during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, when “citizen journalists” posted videos and images of the ensuing military crackdown online, sparking international outrage.

This time, however, it appears that the problem is genuinely technical.

“Slow connection speeds are normal when there is a heavy reliance on one source of Internet access, and that source is disrupted. Burma shouldn’t mainly rely on the underwater cable, but should also upgrade its land fiber optic cables and expand bandwidth,” said one Rangoon-based blogger.

According to international observers, there are around 400,000 people using the Internet in Burma, mostly in the main cities. The country ranked second to last in Internet freedom in a report called “Freedom on the Net 2011,” released by the Washington-based information watchdog Freedom House in April.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22379

http://opennet.net/research/profiles/burma