At the end of 2020, Viettel offered subscribers with 5G services to experience in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and now the group has the license to offer the services in 16 cities and provinces nationwide. At present, the maximum speed tested is 1.8Gb/s while the real speed reaches 1.3 - 1.4Gb/s.
According to Ngo Quyet Tien from the Center for Network Strategy and Technology Innovation under the Network Corporation of Viettel, “In September 2021, the 5G speed of Viettel was up to 4.7Gb/s, 40 times higher than that of its 4G network and 2 times higher than that of the current 5G speed. This fact has helped Viettel become one of the 5G service providers with fastest speeds in Asia. Viettel’s technology provides subscribers with great experiences in even areas with highly-busy traffic such as universities and industrial parks.”
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Viettel has the technologies for developing its 5G network. |
At present, Viettel is pushing up its 5G pilot program with various partners. From the pilot program, Viettel aims to build and develop its 5G technology to be more practical and closer to Vietnamese users. According to Nguyen Trong Cong from the Center for Network Strategy and Technology Innovation, in order to further develop 5G services, it is necessary that Viettel build an ecosystem of products and services in cooperation with the Vietnamese science and technology circle. That is also the reason why Viettel has set up two open labs installed with the most modern equipment for developers, start-ups, and researchers to develop their ideas, evaluate and analyze Viettel’s network infrastructure, and more. Viettel is committed to supporting the research and development, while ensuring researchers’ copyright and connecting businesses to form a complete ecosystem.
At present, Viettel is in its process to fully master the 5G network technologies. In the first half of 2021, engineers of the Viettel High-Tech Corporation (VHT) quickly worked on 5G firmware as they had closely grasped information about the planning of the 5G frequency. The corporation will soon release its firmware as planned.
According to Deputy General Director of VHT Nguyen Minh Quang, Viettel has great advantages, from its customers to its research and development capacity and existing operating systems. Thanks to that, Viettel has quickly grasped the changes needed when deploying its 5G network and made reasonable adjustments. This is a firm foundation for offering 5G services to commercial users.
Most of people directly engaged in the research and development of the 5G base-transceiver station (BTS) are those who developed the 4G BTS. Viettel’s 4G services were 7 years, and the research process of the services was 5 years behind the world. However, that was also the period for the group to accumulate in-depth knowledge for researching and developing equipment and related areas.
General Director of VHT Nguyen Vu Ha shared that Viettel hopes to master all components that make up telecommunications infrastructure equipment with the first focus laid on the research of the core network, then the BTS. This is also what Viettel has aimed at since it started making the 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. Now the time is ripe, and although Viettel had a low starting point for its 4G services, it is the perfect foundation for the group to reach the world level when it comes to 5G services.
Viettel aims not only to offer its 5G services for commercial purposes, but also to ensure a safe, secure, and powerful foundation for the national digital transformation.
Translated by Huu Duong