VietNamNet Bridge – Network operators have been told to reconsider their 3G connection speed, as 45 percent of users are still not satisfied with the service.

Buu Dien Vietnam newspaper, together with Nielsen and other partners on May 9 released the result of the survey to find out the satisfaction of 3G users in three biggest cities of Hanoi, Da Nang and HCM City.

Five groups of elements were cited to measure the satisfaction of the 3G users, namely the connection and network quality; the fame of the network operators; the charges and sales promotion programs; designed service packages and customer service.

92 percent of polled users think that transmission speed is the most important factor when considering the service quality. Meanwhile, only 55 percent of users felt satisfactory about the speed in 2012, the percentage, which was much lower than the 64 percent in 2011.

Especially, 26 percent of users said they were not satisfied with the speed, and 19 percent they were very unsatisfied. 56 percent of users said they look forward for the network operators to improve the connection speed.

Regarding the prestige and fame of the mobile network operators, 84 percent of users highly appreciated the service providers’ creditability and 75 percent were pleased with their creativeness.

As for the sale programs, users said the charges are nearly the same from all the network operators. 66 percent of users said they were satisfied with the charges, while 79 percent had confidence on the fees calculated.

However, 22 percent of users still said the sales promotion programs remain unsatisfactory.  14 percent of users said they were not satisfied with the customer care programs.

The survey has also found that the percentage of customers committing to use 3G service for a long time has dropped from 71 percent in 2011 to 64 percent in 2012, while 6 percent left the networks in 2012, a higher level than the 4 percent in 2011.

Da Nang was the city which had the highest percentage of customers leaving the networks, 14 percent.

The good news is that the 3G users in Hanoi, Da Nang and HCM City in 2012 increased by five folds over 2011 to 400,000. Sixty percent of subscribers used G every day in 2012, while the figure was 42 percent in 2011. HCM City was the locality with the highest number of 3G subscribers and the highest percentage of people using 3G.

Thirteen percent of 3G subscribers use 3G on different mobile devices, while 7 percent said they used 3G on both laptops and mobile phones. Meanwhile, 87 percent used 3G on one device (59 percent used mobile phone, 23 percent on laptop, 1 percent on tablets and 4 percent on desktop computers).

Only 10 percent of users believe that 3G can completely replace ADSL service. 38 percent said they may use 3G instead of ADSL, while 37 percent said they use both ADSL and 3G.

The rapid increase in the number of 3G users in Vietnam and the surprisingly low 3G service fees have surprised all the world. Vietnam’s 3G service fee is 40 times lower than in the Europe, and 10 times lower than in China.

In Vietnam, one only has to pay less than $2 to use 3G service without inhibition. The big guys in the world including Google and Qualcomm also said they could not imagine why a developing country like Vietnam can provide 3G to nearly 100 percent of population and sets up such cheap service packages.

Buu Dien