"Despite efforts to modernize communications, Burma?s telecom sector remains antiquated and inefficient... Maung Ngwe would have attended his mother?s funeral but his family couldn?t tell him in time. They live in a village in Sagaing Division in Upper Burma. Maung Ngwe, 25, lives and works hundreds of kilometers away in Rangoon. He says the deficiency in telecommunications technology is to blame. "Our village doesn?t have any phones, and neither do the neighboring villages, so my family couldn?t make a call to let me know earlier." Instead Maung Ngwe learned of his mother?s death by mail. By then it was too late. Maung Ngwe?s family is not alone. According to official figures, 6,560 villages in Burma have no phone lines. During a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity last August, Tint Lwin, Chief Engineer of the junta?s Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), admitted that most people in Burma?s rural areas have never even heard a dial tone..."