Telecom companies “forget” about 4G licenses

More than a half of the seven telecom companies which asked for the permission to try LTE (4G) technology have not “thrown their troops into battle”.

Buu dien newspaper has quoted its sources as saying “that most of the companies have taken no actions towards providing 4G services, though they got the licenses a long time ago.” Especially, a company reportedly has not come to the Ministry of Information and Communication to receive the license.
Of the seven licensed 4G service providers, only the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication (VNPT), and the Military telecom company Viettel have been taken steps towards the implementation of the projects. On October 10, 2010, VNPT announced it had installed the first LTE-based BTS (base transceiver station) at the Internet Building in bloc 2A, in the Thang Long International Village in Cau Giay District of Hanoi, with which the Internet access speed could reach 60Mbps.
The first phase of the VNPT’s project on running on the trial basis of the wireless broadband services using LTE technology will be carried out by VDC, a subsidiary of VNPT, with 15 BTS in Hanoi with the coverage of one kilometer for every station.
Viettel has announced that it, in cooperation with Huawei, has been installing and integrating LTE equipment in the Tan Binh district in HCM City and Hanoi. On May 12, Viettel organized a press conference, officially announcing the successful testing of 4G technology.
At the press conference, Viettel’s representative performed five services which are considered the most popular services of 4G networks and require high download and upload speed, including video streaming, live TV, HD Video Call, Video Conference and VOD-TVoD.
As such, besides VNPT, Viettel and FPT Telecom, no other company has made any official announcements about their experiments.
Some experts say that 3G technology is still in the first stage of development in Vietnam; therefore, 4G should be the “story of the future”. They also said that it is not the top priority for telecom companies to carry out experiments with LTE at this moment, because the technology still needs improvement and there is still limited terminal equipment. Moreover, Vietnam is not the “leading bird” to apply new technologies.
According to Pham Hong Hai, Director of the Telecommunication Department of the Ministry of Information and Communication, enterprises have the right to test 4G mobile networks within one year. Under the currently applied Telecommunication Law, enterprises then will have to join frequency bids to obtain 4G licenses. After the bidding, enterprises can transfer frequencies if they want. The frequency bidding aims to prevent enterprises from “making a reservation”.
After taking the “examinations” for 3G licenses, telecom companies have been seeking the permissions to try 4G with LTE technology. In September 2010, the state management agency released the decisions allowing VNPT, Viettel, FPT Telecom, CMC and VTC to carry out 4G mobile networks on a trial basis for one year. At the beginning of 2011, EVN Telecom and GTel also asked for the permissions. As such, to date, seven companies have got the permission to try LTE technology.
To date, Viettel is the first mobile network operator which allows clients to try services on 4G basis. However, Hoang Son, Director of Viettel said the testing of 4G just aims to confirm the infrastructure capacity and the mastering of technology. Viettel will only think of commercializing 4G services by 2014 or 2015.
Experts say the high price of terminal equipment is the biggest barrier for the application of the technology. 4G equipments are priced at 300-400 dollars, while 3G equipments at about 30 dollars and 2G 10 dollars.
Viettel hopes that the equipments would get cheaper by 2014 and 2015, and this will be the right time for the company to provide services.- Buu dien

Tags: 4G, 4G network, Vietnam Telecom, Vietnam telecom maket

Posted by VBN on May 19 2011. Filed under Telecommunication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry