4G is believed to cause some changes in people's lives.

4G will be a big rival

In December 2015, Vietnamese for the first time could try 4G as Viettel began providing 4G services on a trial basis in Vung Tau province.

Scientists say 4G is still far from being able to replace fixed internet services.

The military telecom group said it has set up 200 4G base transceiver stations in the cities of Vung Tau, Ba Ria and Long Dien district of the province. The maximum download speed measured in Vung Tau is approximately 230 Mbps, a very encouraging result if noting that it is very close to the theoretical speed of 300 Mbps designed for 4G LTE-A.

As such, Vietnamese have every reason to believe that 4G would be provided throughout the country in the near future, at least by three largest mobile network operators – Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone.

“Many devices which have the screens with 4K resolution are available in the market. Cameras on mobile phones can also shoot 4K films. I hope when 4G services are provided, I can experience the content with high capacity data on internet,” said Nguyen Viet Anh, a former student of the Hanoi University of Technology.

According to Le Dinh Tuan, a simcard trader on Giang Vo street said data simcard for mobile devices have been selling very well at the price of VND250,000 per simcard. Customers have the capacity limit of 2.5 GB a month and for 12 months. 

“I think if 4G services are good, and if network operators offer the service package allowing to access internet with no capacity limit, many customers will choose mobile internet services instead of fixed internet ones,” he commented.

An expert predicted that once 4G services are provided in a large scale, the firms which provide traditional telecom services through ADSL and fiber network like FPT, CMC Telecom and Netnam would lose their customers into the hands of 4G service providers. Meanwhile, television will also have to compete with video channels, especially when Youtube and Facebook have great advantages.

Fixed-broadband internet service providers keep calm

In reply, the representative of a fixed-broadband internet service provider, said that mobile internet is still far from being able to replace fixed internet.

He said internet via fixed broadband has great its advantages, including the high connection speed and stability.

“The power of fixed internet can be seen in Japan. There in the country, 4G has been developing rapidly, but fixed internet network operators still can live well,” he said.

An analyst agreed that fixed internet will still play its important role in the 4G era, at least because the mobile broadband services are still much more expensive than fixed services.