Telcos told VietNamNet on February 15 that they have completed negotiations with partners on the purchase of more land optic fiber cables for international connections. It is expected that more capacity will be provided later this week.

“We are buying more capacity and are going to deploy in some days,” said representative from VNPT, adding that additional capacity will improve quality, especially in peak hours.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Pham Duc Long confirmed that the move would help solve the question about internet connections. He praised the telcos’ efforts to deal with the undersea optic fiber cable incidents, adding that the price of land cable capacity is very high. 

To date, telcos have offset 50 percent of international connection capacity and service quality has improved. Disconnections no longer occur, but internet speed is sometimes low in peak hours.

Telcos have tried to increase the minimum standby proportion by 10 percent to ease congestion in peak hours.

On February 14, the Authority of Telecommunications (AoT) said that as of February 13, mobile network operators had partially improved the quality of international connections. 

Viettel’s capacity in peak hours on February 10 was 96 percent of its total international connection capacity, while the figure decreased slightly to 95.4 percent as of midnight February 12 and to 94 percent as of midnight February 13.

As for VNPT, the international connection capacity in peak hours on February 10 was 96 percent. The figure decreased to 95 percent as of midnight February 12, but increased slightly again on February 13.

MobiFone has relatively high capacity for international connections. In February, its international connection capacity in peak hours was 80 percent of total international connection capacity. 

The figure dropped to 73.1 percent on February 12 midnight and 73.8 percent on February 13 midnight. As such, MobiFone has a network provision rate of 27 percent.

Like MobiFone, FPT’s provision rate is also fairly good. Its international connection capacity in peak hours decreased from 80 percent on February 11 to 74 percent on February 12 and to 73.8 percent on February 13.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung, at a recent meeting to deal with optic fiber cable incidents, requested AoT to work out with telcos on building Vietnam’s submarine optic fiber cable development plan.

Thai Khang