Alcatel-Lucent Denies Selling Internet Monitoring Kit to Myanmar

Alcatel-Lucent has refuted recent media reports that it might have provided monitoring equipment to the Myanmar military government to track internet use by its citizens. In a statement, the company said that "there's no truth in the suggestion that the company provided or installed any dedicated solution to Myanmar for monitoring voice calls or filtering Internet."

Following a contract signed in 2006 and financed by the Chinese government, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell (ASB) has been involved in the build out of a telecommunications infrastructure for the Myanmar Posts & Telecommunications (MPT). The project aims at providing the country with a much-needed basic telecom infrastructure (Myanmar has only 385,000 fixed subscribers and 400,000 mobile subscribers for a population of more than 56 million). Alcatel-Lucent's project which largely consists of a GSM mobile network also includes access, transmission and routing solutions.

This project is part of a regional backbone through the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), connecting China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. Initiated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the GMS program aims to improve economic and social development in the region through reinforcing links and communications between the six countries along the Lancang-Mekong River.

Alcatel-Lucent added that it "appreciates and shares concern about the situation in Myanmar. We are convinced that improving the communications infrastructure of a country largely benefits the people of that country, by supporting the population's economic and cultural well-being and ultimately its capacity to evolve to democracy. We believe that access to the means for effective communication within and outside a country is in itself a basic human right."