VietNamNet Bridge – Telcos are considering developing TV and Internet services on the same line in order to optimize their investments. Specialists believe that this is the best choice in the context of the Internet service fee decreases.

CMC TI has launched GigaNet Home service into the market, making the most of its infrastructure system designed for cable TV. Other information technology companies are attempting to jump into the TV market by providing TV and Internet services on the same lines.

More choices for Internet service for customers

On April 6, 2012, CMC TI officially began providing Internet service on the Hanoi cable TV network. GigaNet Home is implemented on the coaxial cable system, offering four choices with the packages GigaNet Home 1 (2Mbps/768Kbps), GigaNet Home 2 (4Mbps/768Kbps), GigaNet Home 3 (6Mbps/768Kbps), and GigaNet Home 4 (10Mbps/768Kbps).

An executive of CMC TI said at the press conference introducing the new service that CMC TI hopes to have 30 percent of the Hanoi Cable TV using GigaNet Home service. Individual clients would enjoy more utilities from added value services, such as GigaCamera (remote supervision), or E-education

GigaNet Home’s service fee proves to be very competitive if compared with the ADLS packages provided by other network operators.

VNPT’s ADSL packages, for example, have the service fees of between 180,000 dong a month (MegaBasic 2Mbps/512Kbps) and 1.4 million dong a month (MegaPro 10Mbps/640Kbps).

FPT Telecom’s and Viettel’s ADSL packages are a little more expensive, 200,000-230,000 dong at the lowest for 3Mbps/512Kbps package.. Viettel has Home E+ 4Mbps/512Kbps with the package fee of 300,000 dong a month, while FPT Telecom has MegaNet 8Mbps/640Kbps with the fee of one million dong.

Nevertheless, experts have pointed out that the fee of 650,000 dong for the 10Mbps/768Kbps package is still relatively high if compared with FPT Telecom’s VDSL packages (570,000-640,000 dong) for the 15Mbps/1Mbps - 18Mbps/3Mbps bandwidth.

The package fee also proves to be uncompetitive if noting that Viettel is now providing FTTH (fiber to the home) Eco package (12 Mbps) at just 350,000 dong a month, or FTTH TV (10 Mbps) at 300,000 dong.

Explaining the launching of the new service, the executive of CMC TI said the group does not intend to compete directly with ADSL, but just tries to offer another choice for clients to access Internet. The coverage of cable TV in big cities proves to be even larger than the fixed line network.

He affirmed that the quality of Internet service on cable TV is nearly the same as ADSL, and to some extend, is better when allowing the download speed equal to the upload speed. The coaxial cable for cable TV also proves to be more durable.

Still not a threat to traditional ADSL

According to CMC TI, the service has been provided in the sea city of Da Nang since late 2011. To date, about 15 percent of cable TV subscribers are using Internet service provided by CMC TI (10,000 subscribers).

As for Hanoi, the number of GigaNet Home users had accounted for five percent of the total subscribers of the Hanoi cable TV network over the last six months. A lot of clients, who feel unsatisfactory with ADSL service quality, have decided to use Internet service on cable TV line.

However, the representatives of FPT Telecom and VNPT, the Vietnamese information technology and telecom group, said it’s still too early to say to conclude that ADSL would be replaced.

The representative of FPT Telecom affirmed that many people have returned to use ADSL after realizing that their high expectations cannot come true.

Buu Dien