Anti-junta fighters in Myanmar are blowing up telecommunications towers, and the military is responding by laying mines around them After anti-military militants carried out a series of attacks on Myanmar’s mobile telecommunications towers, causing major damage to the structure and reducing network connectivity, the Myanmar military has taken measures to place mines around the towers of network operators, including foreign companies Telenor and Ooredoo, independent The news media of Myanmar now reported on November 5, referring to local telecommunications engineers. Among telecommunications companies, only Telenor from Norway has confirmed this practice, saying that “several sites” have…
After anti-military militants carried out a series of attacks on Myanmar’s mobile telecommunications towers, causing major damage to the structure and reducing network connectivity, the Myanmar military has taken measures to place mines around the towers of network operators, including foreign companies Telenor and Ooredoo, independent News media Myanmar now Reported on November 5, referring to local telecommunications engineers.
The report pointed out that among telecommunications companies, only Telenor of Norway confirmed this practice, saying that the army had installed anti-personnel mines in “several locations.”
“Telenor Myanmar pays serious attention to these practices because they pose serious personnel safety challenges for operations and maintenance personnel and the communities living around the tower site,” a Telenor spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Telenor stated that it has implemented a tower safety plan, which includes sending SMS notifications to Telenor users living near towers deemed dangerous to warn them to stay away from the telecommunications infrastructure. The company also placed physical warning signs at the mines owned by Telenor and stopped servicing these sites.
The state-owned company MPT “has not heard” of any landmines buried on the tower
Both Japanese company KDDI and Sumitomo Corporation, which jointly runs Myanmar’s state-owned mobile operator MPT, told the news media that they “have not heard” of laying any landmines on MPT towers.
Ooredoo Myanmar, the local arm of Qatar’s state-owned telecommunications provider Ooredoo, did not respond to comment.
Telenor is currently selling its Myanmar operations to Lebanon-based M1 Group. The transaction has been criticized by activists for human rights and privacy issues and is now the subject of complaints related to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The report said.
