Nguyen Anh Cuong, Deputy Director of the Telecommunications Authority under the Ministry of Science and Technology, spoke about the 5G ranking at the seminar “How has 5G commercialization impacted Vietnam’s economy?”, organized by the ICT Journalists Club on December 29.

Cuong noted that to achieve 90 percent population coverage, most countries need three years, or at least two years in faster cases. In Vietnam, however, enterprises completed this target within just one year.

“The 5G deployment in Vietnam is among the fastest globally. This is a very remarkable achievement,” the official said.

“Infrastructure first” 

Leading the current 5G coverage race is Viettel. Nguyen Ha Thanh, Deputy CEO of Viettel Telecom, said that by the end of December 2025, the company had deployed 30,000 5G base stations, including 23,500 stations rolled out in 2025 alone.

At present, Viettel’s outdoor 5G coverage has reached 90 percent, while indoor coverage stands at 70 percent. Thanh said this scale is comparable to the first year of 4G deployment.

“Viettel views investment in 5G infrastructure as a guarantee for the nation’s digital infrastructure, so we plan fast and wide deployment. Going forward, we will continue to invest more deeply so that 5G infrastructure can truly drive an explosion of applications, serving not only people but also businesses and authorities at all levels,” Thanh said. 

She added that in 2026, Viettel plans to build an additional 15,000 base stations to increase indoor coverage to 85 percent.

The wide-coverage strategy has begun to show its effectiveness. Thanh cited a recent music event connecting Hanoi and HCMC points, where audiences felt that two singers were performing on the same stage thanks to zero-latency technology. 

From a business perspective, since the launch of 5G, data consumption has increased by 15–20 percent, while customer satisfaction has risen by 20 percent.

Elaborating on the “infrastructure first” approach, Cuong talked about the ‘railway analogy’: “You must have the rails first for the train to run. If you build the train without the rails, it will go nowhere. That would be wasteful.”

Investing in “hot spots”

Unlike Viettel, VNPT and MobiFone have chosen to focus on key areas and enterprise customers.

Nguyen Quoc Khanh, Deputy Head of Technology at VNPT Group, said the company prioritizes coverage in urban areas, industrial parks, seaports, and airports, the locations with high population density and strong economic demand. VNPT aims to cover 55–60 percent of the population by 2026.

VNPT’s strategy places emphasis on private networks. Khanh said: “This year, in addition to higher education, we have conducted new experiments of private networks for smart factory use cases.” VNPT is deploying these models in Tay Ninh and Hai Phong, while seeking opportunities at airports and harbors.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Tuan Huy from MobiFone, said: “We need to determine that 5G primarily serves machine subscriptions. Human users do not necessarily need such ultra-low latency.” He noted that 5G offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, with latency ranging from 1 to 30 ms compared to 30–50 ms for 4G, while supporting massive IoT connections.

MobiFone has so far only conducted pilot deployments in selected industrial parks and urban areas. Huy expects a real breakthrough in 2026 with smart city models.

Taking an example of 5G applications, Huy cited a flood prevention project for Hanoi using hydroinformatics technology. “To eliminate 108 flooding points, tens or even hundreds of thousands of sensors are required. That is when 5G’s capabilities truly come into play,” he explained.

In addition, MobiFone is researching a rescue model using drones that can fly to fire sites, analyze whether the fire involves chemicals or conventional materials, and dispatch fire trucks using AI.

State support 

Alongside strategy building, supervision, and problem-solving support, the State also needs to provide financial assistance to enterprises accelerating 5G infrastructure deployment.

Under Government Resolution 193, enterprises can receive financial support of up to 15 percent of 5G base station equipment costs if they deploy at least 20,000 stations in 2025.

According to Cuong, the support is intended to offset additional costs such as loan interest and equipment price differentials, as equipment prices decline over time, when enterprises invest at an accelerated pace.

“Instead of deploying over two or three years, if companies roll out within one year, the State should provide financial support to compensate for the gap,” Cuong said.

Thai Khang