Junta increases communication fees

_{By Hseng Khio Fah}
 
A telephone user, who received the bills every 2 months, complained about the skyrocketing price of the phone bill and said, “It has increased 5 times. The usual fee was US $1 for every 3 minutes, now it is 2 dollars per minute. If they had informed us of the new price earlier, we would have been careful about our calls but we were not informed. So we made many phone calls having in mind of the old price,” said a local resident.
 
"Usually, I used to pay ($ 25) from Kyat 30,000 to 40,000($ 32) per month. But this time, I went to pay over 100,000($ 80) Kyat. I can’t do anything. I just have to pay. If not, they (military) will confiscate the phones," said a resident who is regularly in contact with her relatives overseas and who wishes to remain anonymous.
 
"SPDC wants to close our ears and eyes from everything. Right now they will raise the fee of using the internet service from Kyat 600($ 0.50) to 10,000($ 8) per hour. They want people not to be able to afford it" said a local source.
 
“They sometimes cut the phone lines and sometimes the internet servers. There are even SPDC agents at the cyber caf้e,” said a local source.
 
Switzerland based news organization ‘Follow the Media’ wrote that Burmese government declared foreign media as ‘skyful of liars attempting to destroy the nation’ and it is trying to restrict ownership of satellite dishes by increasing the price from 6,000($ 5)kyat to 1 million kyat($ 800). There is also rumor that the government is trying to block radio transmission from overseas radio services such as the BBC and Radio Free Asia.