VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese telecom firms have unanimously
charged foreign telecom exploiters higher for the services of connecting the
inbound calls with the subscribers in Vietnam.
Building up agreements and then breaking them
The firms have raised the service
fee from 2.6 US cent per minute to 3.5 cent per minute.
Ten years ago, the service was
considered “the goose that lays golden eggs” for Vietnamese telcos. This then
prompted a lot of investors to jump on the bandwagon. Since they did not have
to make heavy investment to develop the infrastructure system of their own and
only had to pay low expenses, they tried to dump the services, offering low
service fees to foreign partners to scramble for clients.
In fact, Vietnamese telcos
understood that by dumping the services, they lost a lot of money and harmed
the national interests. Especially, their dumping behavior would kill
themselves one day, once the profits cannot cover operation expenses.
However, they still kept a deaf
ear to the problem, just trying to scramble for clients.
The watchdog agency, which was
aware of the problem, took drastic measures to prevent enterprises from dumping
services. However, its efforts were in vain. The telcos, after sitting together
at some meetings and agreeing not to dump the service, immediately broke the
promise after they left the meetings.
Under the latest decision made on
March 2, 2011, the Ministry of Information and Communication suggested the
service fee of 855 dong per minute, or 4.1 US cent. It also stipulated that one
would be considered as conducting the dumping behavior, if it provides the
service at below 15 percent of the above said price level.
However, telcos then still kept
dumping, leading to the service change plunge to 2.6 cent per minute, hitting
the production cost.
A telecom expert said that the
inward output to Vietnam is about 3 billion minutes a year. If Vietnamese
telcos charge 4.1 cent per minute, they would gain 123 million dollars.
Meanwhile, with the price of 2.6
dollars per minute, the Vietnamese telecom industry could earn 78 million
dollars only. As such, Vietnam loses 45 million dollars a year because of the
service dumping.
Connection fee would be 4.1 cent per minute
However, things would change
since most of the telcos have affirmed that they have canceled the previously
signed contracts, while having raised the connection fee for the inward calls
to 3.5 cent per minute from 2.6 cent.
Deputy General Director of
Viettel Le Dang Dung Ha affirmed that Viettel and VNPT have charged 3.5 cent
per minute since October 1, 2012. The two giants have also agreed that they
would further raise the service charge to 4.1 cent as suggested by the Ministry
of Information and Communication.
A senior executive of CMC has
also confirmed that after the meeting gathered by the watchdog agency in
September 2012; telcos have unanimously raised the service fee to 3.5 cent.
However, telcos said that though
the service has been raised, it’s still too early to say that the dumping has
finished. They have urged the watchdog agency to take drastic measures to
prevent the problem.
A senior executive of VNPT said
the average service fee now is five cent per minute on average, or 1000 dong
per minute.
Meanwhile, Pham Hong Hai from the
Ministry of Information and Communication said a foreign consultancy firm
thinks Vietnam could charge 10-12 cent per minute. However, Hai said, this
would come true only if Vietnam can keep strict management over the market.
Buu Dien
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