Minister of Information and Communication Nguyen Manh Hung said at a workshop held in Hanoi late last year that the watchdog agency would grant licenses to launch 5G in large cities, including Hanoi and HCMC, this year.

“MIC will allocate frequency to experiment with 5G from 2019. In 2020, when the world begins using 5G, Vietnam will be one of the first countries in the world to deploy the next-generation technology,” Hung said.

Mobile network operators all say they are ready for 5G experiments in 2019 and are just awaiting licenses from MIC.

VNPT joined forces with Nokia to set up a lab on researching and developing 5G and IoT last October. The project is expected to be implemented for three years with total investment capital of $15 million.

Viettel, the military telco, established a team on 5G R&D in 2015. It expects to complete the trial manufacturing of 5G transceiver stations version 1 by 2019, try the 5G station network by 2020, and begin commercial development by 2021.

Commenting about the 5G roadmap drawn up by Viettel, Thieu Phuong Nam, director of Qualcomm in charge of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, said the plan is feasible.

Technologically, the roadmap is reasonable. If experiments succeed, the development of the 5G network in the next period will proceed quickly. Meanwhile, Viettel has had good experience with 4G.

Other Vietnamese enterprises are also hurrying to carry out R&D, striving to take the initiative in manufacturing telecommunication equipment and smart devices to ease reliance on foreign telecom equipment suppliers.

According to Viettel, Japan, South Korea and China are planning to launch 5G in 2019 or 2020. Vietnam is likely to be one of the pioneers in utilizing 5G.

IoT and smart city 

Denis Brunetti, chair of Ericsson Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, said the technology provides high-speed broadband mobile services with low latency, including transmission of 4K video signals directly to mobile devices, and allows solution providers to launch advanced services to consumers, from healthcare to smart transport systems. 

The total global revenue from 5G is expected to reach $582 billion by 2026.

If Vietnam wants to build smart cities and develop IoT, deploying 5G will be essential to connect millions of devices. 

Nguyen Viet Thang, deputy CEO of Sao Bac Dau, believes that 5G technology will boom in the time to come together with IoT development. 

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