Yangon: Myanmar’s authorities have allowed the first mobile phones to be used in its remote capital Naypyidaw after previously banning them for security reasons, residents there said yesterday.

“Mobile phones have been allowed since October 9 around Naypyidaw. We have better communication now,” a hotel staff member in Naypyidaw said on condition of anonymity.

“It’s the first time the authorities have allowed a mobile service in Naypyidaw,” she said, adding that many hotels had already applied for permission to use the network.

But few people are likely to be able to afford the new service in this impoverished country as she said it cost 1.55 million kyats (nearly $1,500) to obtain permission from the government’s telecommunications department.

Myanmar’s ruling generals moved their entire government from the economic hub Yangon to Naypyidaw four years ago, after building the new administrative capital in secret over the previous three years.

Since then military officials have used only walkie-talkies to communicate. When they moved up in November 2005, the city had few phone lines and no grocery stores, schools or clinics.

“We want these basic facilities in the capital. That’s why CDMA mobile phones have been allowed, to improve communication,” a senior official in Naypyidaw said.

Another official said authorities were planning to open up to a second mobile phone network in the next few months. The military regime’s official explanation for its move to Naypyidaw was to place the capital in a more central location but analysts said the real reason lies in the generals’ paranoia about their own security.

The junta’s main headquarters is completely hidden inside a hilly compound, open only to military officials.