An ICT week of Myanmar, which is the 9th of its kind, kicked off in Yatanarpon Cyber City in Pyin Oo Lwin, northern part of the country, on Saturday to showcase Myanmar's progress and improvement of people's socio-economic life through ICT and enable youths in the country to keep up with latest technology around the world.
In the five-day exhibition running until next Wednesday, 26 IT companies including Fisca, Red Link, Fortune and Sky Net are displaying the country's latest technology, hardware, software, communication products, computer-related electronics devices and electrical goods.
McWill phones with internet access in Yangon and Mandalay are on sale in the exhibition. Other sale includes mobile application softwares, web hosting and domain name registration.
The ICT week is another one following last September's three- day ICT Expo 2010 in Mandalay, the second largest city of Myanmar.
Myanmar has been striving for the development of ICT and the Yatanarpon Cyber City, which is Myanmar's first largest ICT park, was built in Pyin Oo Lwin in 2007 for the development of IT with private companies such as Yatanarpon Teleport Co., Yatanarpon Fiber Factory, E lite Co., Huawei Co., Asia Mega link Co., establishing factories and producing communication accessories there.
The cyber city, which covers an overall area of 4,050 hectares, located in the hilly Pyin Oo Lwin near a highway, 67 kilometers east of Mandalay.
The investment amount of Yatanarpon Cyber City is estimated at 20 millions U.S. dollars including about 10 millions dollars invested by E lite Company which is a branch of Htoo Group of Company.
In October 2010, a first Myanmar-language national web portal and an internet exchange were formally launched in the Yatanarpon cyber city signifying a step forward of the country's development of IT industry.
Along with the launch was also triple play soft switch of Yatanarpon Teleport Company, paving way for the soon availability of high-tech communication FTTH (Fiber to the Home) service system comprising internet, VOIP telephone and IPTV channels from a single fiber cable network which has higher speed system than Wi Max, ADSL, Dial up systems.
Several IT companies in the Yatanarpon cyber city including China's ZTE and Huawei companies displayed their products at the launch.
The two Chinese companies have been partly involved in the construction of the cyber city, cooperating with local companies in developing IT products that suit Myanmar use.
The Yatanarpon national web portal stands the first ever service of Myanmar and it was built for internet users, knowledge seekers and information gatherers to be able to browse the website they like by using the nation's own search engine in Myanmar language.
Without relying on foreign websites, students studying their specialized subjects seeking knowledge are able to browse local and international websites via Yatanarpon web portal.
The triple play service is made up of the internet service, information and communication.
Yatanarpon IXP, Yatanarpon web portal and triple play soft switch stand a milestone in the history of ICT development in Myanmar.
On that occasion, a new technological university of the Yatanarpon cyber city, aimed at producing human resources capable of producing new products with innovation based on ICT, was also inaugurated.
The Yatanarpon technological university is designed to cooperate with international universities so as to produce experts in the field of IT and research.
The technological university under the Ministry of Science and Technology has admitted 7,475 students for the current 2010-11 academic year.
Meanwhile, a Myanmar company, Net Now IT Services, will extend more Wi-fi zones in the commercial city of Yangon in addition to the 13 Wi- fi zones already set up at parks, shopping centers, coffee shops and hotels.
Businessmen are being invited to join the Wi-fi zone extension project which will be implemented phase by phase.
According to other official statistics, more than 10,000 kilometers of fiber optic cables have also been laid nationwide and 335 digital microwave stations and 75 IP microwave stations built. In some regions, VSAT, IPSTAR and I-Direct systems have also been built.