VietNamNet Bridge – More and more people Hanoi have installed cellphone wave stimulating equipment at their homes to improve the wave quality. The equipment have interfered with other networks, thus making telecom services useless.

About 40 different products have been available on the market sourced from Taiwan, China and South Korea, priced at VND3-20 million, and favored by consumers, because the equipment are believed to strengthen the mobile waves.

Wave stimulating equipment is a kind of radio equipment which receives the GSM wave in the places where there are strong waves and then relay, amplify and playback in the places where there are weaker waves.

The equipment have been named in the list of the products which may threaten the safety of mobile networks. These are not popular products, and the users of which have to be licensed by the Ministry of Information and Communication.

To date, there have been only five mobile network operators which have got the licenses.

The Hanoi Department of Information and Communication has found out from an inspection tours that wave stimulating equipment have been at many shops, which could now present the invoices or documents to show the origins of products. The department has released a decision to impose a fine of VND2.85 million on the violators.

However, the existence of the wave stimulating equipment still causes a headache to mobile network operators.

MobiFone, VinaPhone, Viettel and Vietnamobile have repeatedly complained to the Ministry of Information and Communication about the interference to the networks at GSM900 and E-GSM900 waveband.

The network operators have complained that the equipments have badly affected their service quality, leading to the high percentage of unconnected calls and interrupting the connection between mobile phones and the base stations.

According to the region’s Center for Radio Frequency No. 1, which conducted a survey in different areas of Hanoi, wave stimulating equipment have been used mostly in the districts of Hai Ba Trung, Hoan Kiem and Thuy Khue and Thai Ha streets.

The center measured the GSM900 band downlink signal and found that the mobile network quality was weak, which could be the reason why people spontaneously have installed the equipment to improve the wave quality.

A local resident in Dong Da district said since the mobile wave could not reach the inside area of his home, he has to install the wave stimulating equipment to be able to use the services.

Most of the people using the equipment said they don’t know these are the prohibited equipment.

While the low-quality wave has been cited as the reason behind the largely use of wave stimulating equipment, mobile network operators have denied their responsibility.

They said that it’s impossible to set up BTS stations in many areas in Hanoi because of the protest of the local families. Some measures have been applied to settle the problem, but they cannot help settle the problem to the every root.

As such, how to expand the wave coverage in Hanoi remains a difficult question to mobile network operators. People don’t have wave to use mobile services, but they protest against the setting up of BTS near their houses.

Some mobile network operators have given warnings on their official websites against the use of substandard wave stimulating equipment, stressing that the spontaneous use of the equipment is a behavior of violating the laws on radio frequency.

Buu Dien