Telecom operators rush to roll out 4G in Vietnam
TELECOM service providers Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone are scram?bling to put up base transceiver sta?tions and pilot 4G services to be ready to offer them this quarter.
VinaPhone has been providing 4G services on Phu Quoc Island since November after a year of preparation.
“VinaPhone will focus on speed and stability of 4G services,” Luong Manh Hoang, deputy general direc?tor of VNPT and chairman of VNPT VinaPhone, told Dau Tu (Vietnam Investment Review) newspaper.
Next, it plans to offer the services in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and 10 other cities and provinces this quar?ter.
It will install around 21,000 4G base transceiver stations (BTS) to provide the services country-wide this year.
Unlike Vinaphone, Viettel will provide 4G Sim cards to all its cus?tomers by March 1 after beginning the task late last year.
It had planned to start 4G servic?es in early January, but was delayed by technical problems. The launch of services is expected no later than the end of March.
During the Lunar New Year holi?day, the company set up 74 base trans?ceiver stations with four times the capacity of normal BTSs and able to support 2G, 3G and 4G services to prevent the usual network logjam.
Its deputy general director, Hoang Son, revealed that after getting the 4G licence Viettel had begun to invest in infrastructure and equipment.
“Providing 4G Sims is one of our final tasks before providing 4G serv?ices,” the executive said.
Major General Nguyen Manh Hung, general director of Viettel, said the 4G launch was aimed at boosting broadband usage by mobile phone users and raising Vietnam’s profile on the global telecom stage.
“We hope to make Vietnam among the top 30 nations in the world [in terms of] 4G services in the next few years,” the Viettel executive said.
Like Viettel, MobiFone has start?ed to issue 4G Sim cards to customers, with the number already crossing a million.
Besides investing in infrastructure and equipment, service providers are also focusing on digital content for their 4G services.
Minister of Information and Telecommunications Troung Minh Tuan recently instructed authorities to prepare for auctioning the 2.6GHz frequency before the third quarter of this year.
