Metfone officially launched its telecom services on 19th February, 2009 in Cambodia nationwide. By lauching services under this brandname, we desire to build a truly Cambodian company for Cambodian. At the time of Metfone launching, threre were already 07 other mobile operators, three out of them, including Mobitel, Mfone and TMIC, came to Cambodia around 10 years ago. They almost mastered this ma
rket. For years, Cambodia market has been led by Mobitel (a joint venture between Cambodia Royal Group and Millicom) with more than 50% market share. However, except little expansion by Mfone to rural areas along the national roads, other operators concentrated their network in urban and main cities only. Most of them chose microwave transmission to develop their network. As a result, Cambodia infrastructure, which was already fragile due to being destroyed by years of war, was limited to less than 2,000km fiber optic cable and around 1,700 BTS. Almost rural areas, where 80% Cambodia population stay, were out of the coverage. Therefore, Cambodia was still lagged behind the region with around 29% mobile pe*******on. Over reliance on mobile development has caused the detriment to fixed lines. For years, the total subscribers of fixed line almost stood at the same figures of 40,000. Internet services, almost dial up, were provided in some main cities only but at the highest rate in the world. Both fixed and Internet pe*******ons were less than 0.5%.
