VietNamNet Bridge – Reports from different organisations vary about internet speed in Vietnam, but experts say the tests depend on where and what instruments are used.

 

 

 

With the average internet connection speed of 2.5 Mbps in the third quarter of last year, Vietnam ranked equal to the Philippines and just above India (2.0 Mbps).

According to the report, the average Internet connection speed in Vietnam was 2.5 Mbps in the third quarter of last year, down 12% quarter-on-quarter, while the highest speed to be recorded was 16.6 Mbps.

Compared to the same period of 2013, the average and the highest speeds in Vietnam inched up, with respective increases of 22% and 38%.

Such figures were calculated based on different kinds of Internet connection channels like mobile and ADSL broadband Internet.

Regarding high-speed broadband Internet, the Philippines and Vietnam stood at the bottom of the list as the use rates were less than 1%. Meanwhile, with mobile Internet connection, Vietnam was at the bottom with the average speed of 1.1 Mbps and the highest of 7.9 Mbps.

Nguyen Hong Thang from the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said as a CDN (content distribution network) service provider, Akamai collects information based on its Akamai Intelligent Platform, which is then analyzed by experts.

Thang, while noting that Akamai’s figures are “worth considering”, said they still could not reflect the real situation in Vietnam.

Thang quoted a report which shows the situation to be “really good”.

Internet World Stars, for example, report that on January 22, 2015, when Vietnam’s internet capacity dropped dramatically due to the AAG optical cable incident, the internet download speed in Vietnam was 17.54 Mbps, which was a little lower than Thailand (18.43 Mbps) and China (24.18 Mbps). 

This was higher than Indonesia (5.63 Mbps) and Malaysia (6.51 Mbps).

Vietnam’s international internet connection has increased to 900 Gbps, an increase of 300 Gbps in comparison with 2013. Meanwhile, the speed of the fixed broadband internet services is 3-10 Mbps at minimum for ADSL service and 10-100 Mbps for FTTH service.

Meanwhile, the report on Vietnam internet resources released by VNNIC (Vietnam Internet Network Information Center) last December showed that with 291,103 domain names registered, the “.vn” domain name ranks first in ASEAN countries in the number of registered internet users.

With 15.6 million IPv4 addresses, Vietnam ranks second in ASEAN and the eighth in Asia in the number IPv4 addresses.

However, another report released in March by Netindex.com, a website measuring internet access speed, showed quite the reverse.

The report said the internet download speed in Vietnam was 16.85 Mpbs, ranking 57th worldwide and second in South East Asia, following Singapore.

Vu The Binh, CEO of NetNam JSC, said that, like other institutions’ reports, Netindex should be seen as “a source of information for reference”.

Binh said he could not say if Netindex’s measurement method was accurate, because the results depend on many factors, including the measurement system and internet users’ behaviors.

Buu Dien