VietNamNet Bridge – OTT (over the top) app users may not be able to use the services free of charge any more, as the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) attempts to collect fees from them.

The Prime Minister has assigned MIC to set up the policies to put OTT services under the control instead of letting OTT stay “outside of the law.”

Prior to that, Pham Hong Hai, Head of the MIC’s Telecom Agency, once said the OTT services which have big influences to the society’s life, need to be put under control. Meanwhile, a source said MIC is considering collecting fees from the service users. The same policy is being applied in South Korea.

Mobile network operators would be very happy if OTT app users have to pay fees, because they would be the biggest beneficiaries from the policy.

However, it seems that the mobile network operators are not patient enough to wait until the day the decision on collect fee from OTT users is made. They are attempting to raise the 3G subscription fee from VND40,000 a month now to VND50,000. Sources said the decision may be released in just some days.

Mobile network operators, who complained that the existence of OTT apps has made them lose hundreds of billions of dong in revenue every month. People nowadays don’t make calls the way they have got used to, but tend to use OTT apps to communicate free of charge.

They only have to pay the subscription fee for 3G services to the mobile network operators, just tens of thousands of dong a month.

Analysts said the 3G service fee increase would help mobile network operators earn VND100 billion more a month. However, they have commented that this could not be the best solution for them.

According to the analysts, the fee increase would raise controversy among the public. This may raise the anger among the clients, who may not accept the 25 percent fee increase. Especially, a lot of 3G subscribers do not use OTT apps, and they would protest the mobile network operators’ decision to raise fee just to offset the loss caused by OTT apps.

OTT apps have become quite familiar to Vietnamese. It is expected that Vietnam would have some 20 million OTT app users by the end of the year. Kakao Talk hopes to obtain 7 million users; Viber has set up the goal of attracting 10 million users in Vietnam, while Zalo said it has got 4 million users.

Mobile network operators, which reportedly suffer the loss in the revenue, have pointed out that OTT apps are the “culprit” and repeatedly proposed the watchdog agency to set control over the apps.

Deputy General Director of the military telecom group Viettel Nguyen Manh Hung said if the 40 million mobile subscribers of Viettel use 3G and OTT, the turnover of the network would drop by 50 percent. Voice and message services now bring 80 percent of the total turnover of mobile networks.

A representative of MobiFone, one of the three biggest mobile networks in Vietnam estimated that there are 280,000 calls on Viber in Vietnam and 8.7 million SMS per day.

Phan Sao Nam, Chair of VTC Online, said he previously had to pay some VND900,000 a month for telecom services, while he now has to spend VND320,000 a month only, including the VND120,000 bill for 3G services.

Dat Viet