VietNamNet Bridge - While customers of all mobile networks complain about slow 3G services, network operators say their 3G network capacity is large and speed is sufficient.

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A report on Vietnamese 3G service users’ behavior released by Buu Dien Viet Nam newspaper and GfK Vietnam shows that 57 percent of users wanted network operators to improve transmission speed, 18 percent proposed network operators to ensure higher stability, 16 percent proposed extension of coverage and 15 percent suggested reducing the service fee.

The survey was conducted several months ago on users in Hanoi, HCM City and Da Nang.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) last year released an ‘ultimatum’ requesting mobile network operators to ensure 3G service quality as they had committed after clients complained about the bad quality of 3G. 

While customers of all mobile networks complain about slow 3G services, network operators say their 3G network capacity is large and speed is sufficient.
Network operators said they had been upgrading the networks and that the service quality was stable.

In late 2015, the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT) stated that it became a network operator with the largest 3G coverage in Vietnam after it installed 11,000 3G transceiver stations, including 7,000 stations with frequency of 900 Mhz.

VinaPhone is now the only network which successfully deploys 3G technology with 900Mhz frequency in all 63 cities and provinces. With 3G 900, VinaPhone’s 3G entire coverage is equivalent to 33,000 3G 2100 Mhz stations.

As such, VinaPhone has expanded its coverage area by 2.5 times compared to 2014.

Meanwhile, by early 2015, Viettel, the military telco, had 29,000 3G transceiver stations, becoming the network with the highest number of 3G stations with coverage reaching remote and mountainous areas.

Viettel is the only network operator which spends money to develop 2G, 3G and 4G technologies, while other operators have stopped investing in 2G.

All network operators said that the 3G capacity used by existing clients is not higher than 40 percent of their total capacity, so congestion would not occur. 

They said that clients were unsatisfied because 40-60 percent of clients use the VND70,000 service package with 600 Mb of 3G data. 

When they use up the capacity provided, network operators will squeeze the bandwidth to 32 Kbps as requested by MIC.

According to Pham Ngoc Tu from VNPT, 60 percent of VinaPhone’s clients register the service package. When clients use up the capacity in the package, they will be informed through messages. However, most clients do not pay attention to the messages.


Buu Dien