EVN Telecom proposes to share telecom facilities with mobile network giants

The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) has asked Ministry of Information and Communications if it can be allowed to share domestic mobile networks with Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone.

According to EVN, sharing mobile network would help companies to lower investment costs.

In its proposal, EVN expected three telecom giants including Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone to share their 2G and 3G networks to offer roaming services to the areas EVN does not have coverage.

EVN said that despite the investment of billions of dollars of the above network providers into 3G facilities, the 3G network has not been fully exploited. Meanwhile, EVN Telecom has also received license to offer 3G service and it has started offering the service in some major cities.

In the applications for 3G network permission, total committed capital investment that the four firms was about $4 billion (averaging $1 billion from each network provider).

In the first phase, they will invest about $1.7 billion with 15,000 3G base stations. In the following years, they will invest additionally about $2.5 billion to complete building 3G network with about 30,000 base stations.

EVN said that by sharing telecom facilities by roaming the 2G and 3G networks, mobile network providers would save at least $1 billion.

This is the second time EVN has proposed this issue to those network providers. In January 2010, EVN also proposed Ministry of Information and Communication to talk with telecom giants regarding this issue.

At that time, EVN said that sharing infrastructure among mobile networks is a trend that many countries in the world have actively deployed. Currently, GSM networks in Vietnam have linked with GSM networks of most countries in the world, and thus creating favourable conditions for customers travelling abroad.

Therefore, EVN requested telecom giants to facilitate it set call roaming, in order to assist customers and help EVN Telecom reduce costs. That means EVN’s subscribers could use connection of other service providers when they are out of EVN Telecom’s network coverage. In addition to roaming issue, EVN also petitioned Ministry of Information and Communication to consider lowering 50 percent of the connection fee for international VoIP service.

Talking with VnExpress, leader of Viettel Telecom said that it is true that Viettel has been making very large investment in network, network coverage and base stations for 3G services. However, this large investment is to satisfy the customers’ demand, not for other firms to use. Furthermore, for mobile services, it is very difficult to forecast how subscribers would change, especially subscribers of other networks, to make investment to ensure the quality of services.

The leader of Viettel also said that in mobile sector, the most important thing in competition is network quality. Therefore, investing to have such wide network coverage like Viettel is not easy.

Leader of VinaPhone analysed that currently, customer management of mobile network providers have to comply very strict regime. Providers must control the call and message flow and location of subscribers, etc. and it would be very complicated when sharing with EVN.

Currently, only VNPT’s two networks VinaPhone and MobiFone share their network facilities, although Ministry of Information and Communication has more than once called the network providers to share networks.

According to finding of VnExpress, another reason that telecom giants do not want to share network infrastructure is the huge investment for the base stations. Meanwhile, the race between mobile networks is no longer on charges but quality, and the crucial issue for quality is network coverage.

Currently, there are seven firms providing mobile networks in telecom market, including VinaPhone, MobiFone, Viettel, S-fone, EVN Telecom, Vietnamobile and Beeline.

Among them, Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone hold about 90 percent market share, the rest belongs to the four smaller mobile networks. – Vietbiz24

Tags: EVN Telecom