Since the beginning of May 2025 there have been severe mobile phone and internet network outages in Sagaing Region’s Kale (Kalay) Town.
Since the outage began in early May, the only mobile network with any service in Kale Town has been the junta owned MPT network. This has caused so much increased demand for MPT SIM cards that there is now a shortage and if they can be found they cost 45,000 MMK, instead of the normal price of 7,000 to 8,000 MMK.
A Kale resident said to Chin World: “In Kale Town, all [mobile network] services from Ooredoo, Atom [formerly Telenor] and MyTel have been down for about four days now. The only network that’s working is MPT, and even that’s pretty unreliable. You can still make calls and use mobile data through MPT, but the signal comes and goes. MPT SIM cards have shot up to 45,000 MMK each, and they’re completely out of stock. Prepaid top-up cards are also unavailable. As of now, there’s still no clear explanation for the outage.”
From 11 April 2025, Kale Town, which is on the border with Chin State, experienced several days of unexplained mobile network outages. But, since the coup such outages have become increasingly common in Kale Town, according to locals.
Kale Town is on the border with Chin State where there have also been widespread mobile network outages with the most recent outage also running from the beginning of the May, as it has in Kale Town. All of Chin State has been affected and some residents of the state capital, Hakha, have had to resort to connecting to the internet via the Starlink satellite internet network which bypasses any junta controls.
