VietNamNet Bridge - The Vietnamese government will allow operators to offer services through reselling fixed, internet and mobile phone services from later this year.

Industrial park telecoms charges are set to head south

The draft reads that enterprises will be able to satisfy conditions for a licence regulated in Decree 160 to resell fixed telephone and internet services through hiring domestic and international transmission channels and to provide mobile services through a mobile virtual network operator status.

Of which, an enterprise will be allowed to hire domestic and international transmission channels for offering services and connections with other network operators, receiving codes for telecom services and composing contract model signings with customers during in their operation areas. These enterprises will not have the right to prevent customers from hiring other operators’ telecom services.

The initial beneficiaries are hotels and industrial parks which will soon have the right to set their own phone charges within local areas, once they obtain telecom service reseller status when the draft is issued later this year.
Telecom charges in industrial parks will be lower due to the competitive environment among telecom operators, analysts said.

“This decision will give freedom to hotels to set their own charges for phone services, including fixed phone and internet connection fees that are expected to be higher than existing charges quoted by domestic operators,” said an official from the MIC’s Telecom Department.

The necessary conditions for offering the services will be a business licence and a public telephone box installed at the reception corner, which will create another opportunity for hotel guests to use services at lower costs. Many international hotels in Vietnam have faced fines for making higher charges than those set by domestic operators.

For the mobile virtual network operators [MVNO] licence to offer mobile services, enterprises will have right to apply three kinds of business licence, including a full MVNO, which is allowed to set up mobile network without base transceiver stations, an intermediate MVNO which is also allowed to set up mobile networks without base transceiver stations and mobile switching centre and a simple MVNO, which enables firms to set up billing, customer care, distribution networks and marketing channels.

“We have experienced reselling business in voice-over-internet-protocol since 2000. However, the MVNO business may enjoy an advantage as the market is still not mature enough for fair competition among MVNOs and MNOs,” said Le Nam Thang, MIC Deputy Minister.

(Source: VIR)