Vietnam - Mobile network operators suddenly speed up on 3G clear road

VietNamNet Bridge – 40,000 dong a month is the lowest service fee for unlimited 3G services for now. However, mobile network operators have been competing with each other not only in terms of service fees. Some operators have successfully applied 3.5G on the whole networks.

Though experts believe that it would take mobile network operators a long time more to popularize 3G services in Vietnam, the service providers have been trying to attract users by offering surprisingly cheap service packages.

In early October 2011, MobiFone kicked off a new race on the market of Mobile Internet for mobile phones by launching MIU with the all-in fee of 60,000 dong a month. With the new service package, the clients using 3G on mobile phones do not have to worry about additional fees, because the limitation is set up already.

Prior to that, big mobile network operators set up the ceiling level of nearly one million dong a month for 3G Mobile Internet, which made users fear that they may accidentally use too much capacity and have to pay much money.

Right after MobiFone launched the service package, other mobile network operators marketed similar packages with lower fees. Viettel and VinaPhone, for example, have launched Mobile Internet package with unlimited use capacity with the maximum fee of 40,000 dong a month. As for Viettel, if counting on monthly 3G subscription fee, the total sum of money users have to pay a month for unlimited Mobile Internet is 50,000 dong.

Meanwhile, not only lowering the MIU service fee to 40,000 dong a month (3G subscription fee is exempted), MobiFone has also increased the data capacity to a series of other Mobile Internet packages. M50 package, for example, has seen the capacity increasing from 35Mb to 550 Mb. Meanwhile, M70 has the capacity rising from 600 Mb to 800 Mb, M100 from 1 Gb to 1.2 Gb, and D30 from 1.5 Gb to 1.7 Gb.

A representative of MobiFone said that since the day of providing 3G services, the network operators decided that the services need to reach out to every client. Therefore, MobiFone has always been trying to offer the lowest possible 3G fees to make the services affordable to everyone.

Telecom experts say that though there are four suppliers on the market, including MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel and Vietnamobile, the market has been dominated by the three big networks, which have potentials big enough to slash service fee and provide high quality services.

Users have said that when deciding to use Mobile Internet, they would not only consider the service fees and choose the networks with the most competitive fees, but they would also consider the brands of the suppliers.

That explains why mobile network operators have been racing to become the pioneers in launching the most “revolutionary” service packages with the best prices.

On April 12, 2012, MobiFone kicked off a new race with the announcement that it has successfully applied HSPA+ (equal to 3.5G) for the whole network. With 3.5G, the download speed would reach 21 Mbps at maximum and the download speed at 5.76 Mbps. With the new technology, the mobile network operator has installed 3500 3G base trans-receiver stations.

MobiFone in late 2011 received a valuable gift from Yahoo Group. The world’s leading Internet group conducted a survey on the Vietnamese people’s habits of using Internet on mobile devices (Yahoo!Mobile Index) in four big cities of Hanoi, HCM City, Da Nang and Can Tho. And it found out that MobiFone is the No 1 mobile Internet service provider, who is holding 60 percent of the market share. The second position belongs to Viettel with 26 percent of market share and the third to VinaPhone with 11 percent.

Source: VnMedia, Buu Dien

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