Some suspected that the repair was not really an actual cause but the authority was fabricating their technology to monitor the activity of Burmese dissidents and opposition over the internet. Their suspension was taken more seriously when recently some activists were arrested accusing them of using “g-talk” to communicate outside political associations. Some argued that internet slowness was to setup traps and to track the intention of Burmese political oppositions.
According to local internet users, G-Mail pages were found to be slower than other web-pages while Burmese internet users and Cyber Cafes were heavily relying on Google’s G-Mail and G-Talk services to communicate with friends and family members in overseas.
Business owners of Cyber-Café told MoeMaKa that since of this service disruption of Burmese internet service at last week of March up until now for nearly one month, their income were suffering largely. Even though under these inconvenience caused by the authority’s maintenance works, there’s no compensation or reimbursement from them to make up their poor service. There’s no sign that the authority would reduce the monthly subscription of the internet service fees during this period.
According to some reports, there were 300,000 of internet users in Burma but among ASEAN countries, Burma was most expensive and poorest in internet service. There were two ISP in Burma namely Myanmar Telecomm and Myanmar Teleport but Myanmar Teleport run by Burmese generals was controlling the market and the activity.