VietNamNet Bridge – Telecom experts are urging preparations for application of 4G technology as the current 3G has failed to meet expectations of local consumers.

Speaking to the Daily, Thieu Phuong Nam, country manager of Qualcomm for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, said demand for mobile connectivity had been rising in line with the boom of smartphones and tablets, thus putting great pressure on 3G infrastructure and quality. This has forced carriers to optimize their infrastructure and increase their broadband to meet such big demand.

“Mobile service providers should brace for 4G technology that can help improve the quality of 3G service and handle the huge mobile traffic,” Nam said.

Nam noted that 4G would be the next development step of technology and that now it was not too soon to think about 4G. What should be done now is to seek ways to make the most of 3G service and develop 4G technology, he said. To make sure investments in 4G will be efficient, users must be satisfied with the quality of 4G, he added.

Sharing the same view, Pham Tien Thinh, former managing director of S-Fone, said demand for broadband traffic was surging strongly while the present 3G infrastructure was still unable to meet it. Therefore, he said, carriers should take preparatory steps for switching to 4G in the future.

Telecom companies in Vietnam had invested more than US$1 billion in 3G infrastructure and services and that it would take time to recover the capital, Thinh said. However, he noted, a lot of individual and corporate customers need bigger broadband. That’s why these enterprises need to resort to 4G infrastructure to cope with the urgent demand, he explained.

“Conversion into 4G should have a proper roadmap to avoid wasting the existing 3G infrastructure. We should not commercialize 4G widely and should supply it for customers with real demand only,” Thinh insisted.

Relating to conversion into 4G, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) recently emphasized that now was not the right time for Vietnam to apply 4G as 3G had been just in place in the last three years.

At a recent meeting on the telecom industry in Hanoi, Le Nam Thang, deputy minister of Information and Communications, said the imperative job of the industry now was to perfect the infrastructure to ensure the stability and sustainability of broadband service development to catch up with users’ needs for faster data transmission speed.

As per the nation’s master plan for telecom development by 2020, Vietnam will only consider licensing 4G technology and the next generations after 2015 based on auctions and bidding. MIC in 2010 granted the service licenses to five companies – FPT Telecom, VNPT, VDC, CMC TI and VTC, allowing them to pilot 4G using LTE technology for one year.

Source: SGT