State-run Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) on Wednesday started to sell 350,000 first-ever low-priced sim cards across the country on monthly basis to enable ordinary people to use mobile phones at reasonable prices.

With a presented pre-paid top-up of 300 Kyats, the unit price of MECTEL-branded low-cost sim card (CDMA-800 MHz) is set at 1,500 Kyats (1.72 US dollars) only, a sharp drop from 1.5 million Kyats (1,704 US dollars) when such sim cards were first introduced more than a decade ago.

Those who want to use Internet on their mobile phones are to pay additional initial installation cost of 10,000 Kyats.

The introduced sim card with CDMA-800 MHz system will be serviceable for both local and foreign calls, while GSM (2.7 G), WCDMA (3G) will be put on sale later.

The mobile phone subscribers are set to fill at least 5,000 Kyats top-up within 15 days from the date of purchase before the presented 300-Kyat top-up expires as the sim cards are sold for end users at low price.

MPT first reduced the price from 1.5 million Kyats to 500,000 Kyats (568 US dollars) in February 2011 and then to 200,000 Kyats (227 US dollars in April 2012.

There are 282 radio stations (CDMA-800 MHz mobile system) across the country, from which local and trunk calls are connected.