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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Viettel'

Vietnam to award four 3G licences in Q2′09

  • November 11th, 2008
  • 6:03 am

The Vietnamese government has decided to award country’s four 3G licences by Q2′09. All seven existing 2G cellcos, MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel, EVN Telecom, SPT, Hanoi Telecom and GTel, are competing for the four licences.
Each operator until early January 2009 has to complete and return the documents to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

   

Vietnam mobile market shows skyrocketing growth despite economic turmoil (Vietnam)

  • October 7th, 2008
  • 2:34 pm

Within the span of eight months this year Vietnam mobile subcribers reaches the mark of 52.4 million.The mobile penetration rate now stands at around 60 per cent. It is anticipated that the mobile subscribers will grow to 65 million by later this year and mobile penetration will increase to 70 users per 100 people.

Over the last four years cellular market of Vietnam shows fast paced growth, going from four million users by the end of 2004, to 37 million by the end of 2007. Considering its demographic trends it is anticipated that the boom will continue for at least the next five years, and probably longer. “By 2012, we forecast the total 89 million mobile market is achievable in Vietnam. Mobile penetration of about 99 per cent is possible in that timeframe,” said, Roger Barlow, chairman and CEO of RJB Consultants Limited. The factors that leads to growth are:

  • Lower priced handsets and service plans
  • Increased competition among five GSM networks
  • Network expansion into rural areas
  • Convergence between mobile and fixed networks
  • Broadcast capabilities and data usage through 3G deployments

Viettel adds 60,000 new mobile subscribers per day and MobiFone around 40,000 users. Viettel has captured 40% of the market and have become a strong participant

Vietnam mobile subscribers reaches the mark of 57mln by the end of September (Vietnam)

  • October 3rd, 2008
  • 5:40 am

A local media reports that the number of telephony users in Vietnam has reached 70.4 million with a teledensity of 82 phones per 100 residents. Mobile subscribers has reached the mark of 57 million accounting 81%. According to Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnamese operators won 3.7 million new subscribers in September, up 362 percent year-on-year, bringing the total of new subscribers this year to 23.4 million. The Vietnam Post and Telecommunications group (VNPT) are serving 55.4 percent of the more than 70 million telephony users, trailed by Viettel with 34 percent.

Vietnam lowers mobile phone charges close to cost price (Vietnam)

  • August 12th, 2008
  • 1:59 pm

Vietnam’s big mobile operators MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel and S-Phone will be offering promotional sercvice packages. These packages will be avilable from now till end of September’08.

MobiFone named it “Colleague connection” package, in which phone charges are reduced by 30-50% for groups of 5-30 callers. Viettel has VPN package with a charge reduction of 40-50%. VinaPhone and S-Fone also offer packages with charge reductions of 20-40%.

According to the Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Le Nam Thang, the mobile charges, which have been falling by  15-20% per year on average, are close to the cost price.

In Vietnam, at present, 60% of the population are phone subscribers, and 90% of those are mobile subscribers. The number of mobile subscribers rises by 15-20 million a year.

   

Viettel will bring BlackBerry to it’s subscribers in September (Vietnam)

  • August 12th, 2008
  • 6:19 am

Viettel, Vietnam’s largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers, is bringing RIMM BlackBerry for it’s subscribers in Vietnam, an official revealed.

“Viettel has signed a contract to import more than 4,000 handsets for the first time for the domestic market and expects to import more later,” said the official.

The company will provide all services for BlackBerry handsets and will be the sole distibutor for BlackBerry in the country.

The first consignment will include 4 mobile phone models - the BlackBerry 8100, 8320, 8700 and 8800.

   

Chunghwa plans Cambodia launch (Cambodia)

  • June 12th, 2008
  • 2:49 pm

Chunghwa Telecom of Thailand plans to cooperate with Vietnamese operator Ciettel to offer telecoms services in Cambodia, according to Chairman and CEO Ho Chen Tan. ‘Chunghwa Telecom is working with Viettel to offer telecom services in Cambodia,’ Ho Chen told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview on the sidelines of a telecom conference in Hanoi. The telco currently owns a 30% in an internet data storage joint venture with Viettel and appears keen to further the relationship. Viettel, which is run by the Vietnam Ministry of Defence, is the only Vietnamese telecom company to have received permission to operate telecom services in Cambodia.Viettel was granted a 30-year GSM concession in December 2006 with 1800MHz spectrum; it has reportedly spent around USD27 million on new infrastructure, and hopes to launch services by the end of 2008.

   

 

Viettel to stop selling controversial service

  • June 3rd, 2008
  • 3:09 pm

Mobile operator Viettel has announced that it has stopped seeking new customers for its HappyZone offering, but that it will be maintaining it for the package’s existing 500,000 users. The service – which offers preferential charges to customers making calls within the zone in which they first registered – has proved highly controversial since its introduction, with rival operators and the regulator questioning its legality. A high-ranking official of Viettel said that HappyZone is a good service for housewives, students and low-income earners who do not have opportunities to go beyond the city in which they registered. But Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Le Nam Thang said that Viettel was wrong to initiate the service without regulatory permission, customer interest notwithstanding. ‘We have asked Viettel to stop providing this service. If this firm continues to offer this service, it will have to bear responsibility,’ Thang stated.

   

 

 

MobiFone aiming at 6.5 million new subs in 2008 (Vietnam)

  • January 21st, 2008
  • 5:49 am

Vietnamese Newspaper Nhan Dan reports that cellco MobiFone is aiming to sign up 6.5 million more subscribers in 2008, to take its total to over 15 million. It is expecting to earn total revenues of VND16 trillion (USD1 billion) and turn a profit of VND6.65 trillion. To achieve these goals, the company will continue to expand its coverage area and increase its service quality in all localities and cities throughout the country. In 2008, MobiFone is planning to install 6,000 more base transceiver station (BTS), raising its total to nearly 10,000 by the end of the year.

MobiFone is owned by the state via incumbent telco VNPT’s Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services (VMS) division and was the country’s first GSM operator, launching in 1994. At the end of September 2007 it had an estimated seven million subscribers, giving it a 28% market share and placing it second behind military-owned cellco Viettel.

   

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em (Vietnam)

  • January 10th, 2008
  • 2:27 pm

According to an anonymous source reported in VietNamNet Bridge, CDMA cellco HT Mobile has asked the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) for permission to switch its network from CDMA to GSM-based technology. The source said that officials met last week to consider HT Mobile’s application. Though the cellco, a joint venture between Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited (HTIL) and Hanoi Telecom, has not confirmed the report, it is known that in September 2007 it stopped investing in its existing infrastructure.

HT Mobile launched CDMA 850MHz services in January 2007 with the aim of attracting one million subscribers by the year end, but according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database it had only achieved 185,000 by the end of September, in a year in which as many as 14 million new mobile phone subscribers (according to local press estimates) were recorded in the country. Fellow Vietnamese CDMA operator S-Telecom added approximately 750,000 subscribers in the first nine months of 2007, its best period since launching in 2003, but it was the GSM cellcos Viettel, MobiFone and Vinaphone which garnered the vast majority of new users. GSM networks are favoured by Vietnamese mobile users over CDMA, despite the latter being a more recent innovation. One inhibiting factor of CDMA is the smaller range of handsets it offers in comparison with GSM, in a youth-dominated market preoccupied with being able to change phones easily and frequently.

   

AT&T starts commercial operations in Vietnam (Vietnam)

  • November 27th, 2007
  • 2:29 pm

AT&T has announced the commercial launch of business in Vietnam. This follows the announcement in November 2006 for a collaboration with the local telecommunications carrier Viettel. Under the agreement between AT&T and Viettel, initial services available to multinational customers include VPN and frame relay services. There are plans to add more services in the future. In addition to the existing office in Hanoi, AT&T plans to set up another representative office in Ho Chi Minh by the end of the year.