Speaker of Parliament G.Zandanshatar met with representatives of the telecommunications industry on April 10.
Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports Yo.Baatarbileg, Minister of Health D.Sarangerel, CEO of Mobicom Corporation Tatsuya Hamada, CEO of GMobile Corporation G.Dashnyam, CEO of Gemnet LLC S.Delgersaikhan, Head of Mongolian Information and Communication Operators Association U.Tamir, CEO of Information Communications Network LLC Ch.Zolbayar, CEO of Unitel Group D.Enkhbat, CEO of Telecom Mongolia M.Altan-Ochir, CEO of Mongol Post B.Ankhbaatar, and CEO of Skytel Group D.Narantuya participated in the meeting and expressed their views on COVID-19 response and their operations.
They noted that the telecommunications industry has supported the measures taken by Cabinet and the State Emergency Commission to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Particularly, the TV lessons on www.econtent.edu.mn and IPTV will be made available through smartphone and TV for free for a certain period of time. More than 30 million users have watched TV lessons in duplicate figures within two months. Students of 11 universities have been able to access their university's website using unlimited data and speed.
In addition to the above-mentioned activities in the field of education, the telecommunications industry introduced discounts and exemptions in their services, such as increasing the capacity of users' data services and offering data packages to users. The cost of some international calls have been reduced.
Telecommunications businesses mentioned that they’ve taken disinfection measures, reduced working hours, and now allow 40-60 percent of employees to work from home.
They proposed possible measures that can be taken by the telecommunications industry. In particular, the representatives proposed to develop a unified information application to communicate information about the COVID-19 pandemic, and to create a unified e-lesson portal for free.
The impact of the current situation on the telecommunications industry was also briefly presented. They mentioned that revenue is declining as the workload of call services decline. In addition, there is a risk that the network will be overloaded and the quality of service will be affected adversely due to large discounts and exemptions on data usage, and the increase in bandwidth and speed without changes.
Therefore, the telecommunications industry representatives requested exemption on social insurance premium payment and income tax, and import tariff on urgently needed equipment.
Speaker of Parliament G.Zandanshatar noted that there is a way out of the crisis in the telecommunications industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He expressed his readiness to pay attention to the requests.
Minister of Education, Culture, Science and Sports Yo.Baatarbileg expressed gratitude to the telecommunications industry, which has supported the activity of the state amid the COVID-19 pandemic proactively.
“Currently, the lessons of the first quarter were transferred to TV lesson. The ministry is working to make the full year curriculum available on television and create opportunities for learning from all over the world,” the minister said.
Minister Yo.Baatarbileg mentioned that 28,500 students will take the general entrance exam this year. Therefore, industry representatives were asked to support all graduating students by making it possible for them to prepare via online lessons.
Expressing gratitude to the representatives for donating equipment, services and products worth 270 million MNT, Minister of Health D.Sarangerel said, “About 500 new SIM cards were donated to the Ministry of Health to provide communication services to the quarantined people. Furthermore, 184.4 million messages that contain advice and warning from the National Emergency Commission and Ministry of Health worth 3.7 billion MNT were sent out to the people for free. Employees of the health sector have been provided free data.”
Speaker of Parliament G.Zandanshatar expressed his view on supporting the telecommunications industry to make a e-transition.
