2013-03-22
RFA
Google chief Eric Schmidt speaking to students at a technical university in Rangoon, March 22, 2013. RFA
Google chairman Eric Schmidt urged the Burmese government to encourage private companies to develop the long-isolated country’s telecoms sector, saying a free Internet and more widespread web access will help cement ongoing political reforms.
“The Internet will make it impossible to go back,” he said during a rare trip to the country, referring to the days when Burma was under harsh military rule for decades.
“The Internet, once in place, guarantees that communication and empowerment become the law and practice of your country,” he told students at a technical university in Rangoon, Burma’s commercial capital.
Long cut off from the rest of the world by sanctions and strict censorship under the former junta regime, Burma still has low Internet penetration and slow connections.
Mobile phone costs are astronomical compared to those in neighboring countries and data-enabled smartphones are prohibitively expensive for most Burmese.
Schmidt urged the government to allow private companies to help build a telecommunications infrastructure, previously wholly government-run under the junta which gave up power in March 2011.
“I predict that if you do that right, the most profitable businesses in Myanmar [Burma] could be in the telecoms industry,” he said
Within a few years, Burma’s cities could be linked with fast fiber optic cables, and 3G and 4G technology could connect a large network of inexpensive smartphones, he said.
Avoiding censorship
But he warned that the government should avoid policing the web in Burma, where until a few years ago Google’s Gmail service was blocked and queries in the search engine were censored by filtering software.
"Try to keep the government out of regulating the Internet," he said to a round of applause from the audience.
"The answer to bad speech is more speech. More communication. More voices," he said.
This week, Google launched a Burma-specific homepage, and unblocked its Google Apps store to allow access from within Burma, following the U.S.’s removal of sanctions on doing business in the once pariah country last year.
Khun Oo, an official with the Myanmar Computer Association, a private organization of computer programmers and entrepreneurs, said he looked forward to seeing Google doing more business in Burma.
“Mr. Schmidt said that Google will help Burma with the technology to develop Burma’s IT sector. If Google helps, not only will our IT technology develop, but the country’s business in general will develop,” he said after Schmidt’s speech.
In January, Burma’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Thein Tun was placed under house arrest and investigated over possible links to high-level corruption in a proposed nationwide telecommunications network.
Earlier this year, Schmidt made a landmark trip to North Korea, urging Pyongyang to open up the Internet, particularly on its mobile network.
Reported by San San Tin and Kyaw Thu for RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.
Read more: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/burma/google-03222013191201.html
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