High internet penetration in Vietnam

Vietnam has entered the top 20 nations with the highest internet penetration paving the way for increasing broadband subscribers to 2010. The country ranked 17th out of 20 countries with the highest internet usage with 15.5 million internet users in March.Minister of Post and Telematics Do Trung Ta said Vietnam had set its sights on Malaysia and Singapore which have 36.6% and 56.3% ratios respectively.

“With this background, we can step up internet user penetration during 2007-2010,” said Ta.Vietnam hopes to have a 35-40% internet penetration rate in 2010, equivalent to 13-14 internet accounts per 100 people.Among internet users to 2010, 30% will be broadband internet subscribers including all state agencies, high schools, institutes and universities.

VNPT Group’s Vietnam DataCommunication Company (VDC) director Vu Hoang Lien said the group’s number of internet subscribers would account for a half of the country’s total by 2010, the bulk of them being broadband internet users.“The number of dial-up users has kept falling but is steady in rural and mountainous areas. However, once broadband internet reaches these areas, dial-up services will automatically disappear,” said Lien.Dial-up revenue accounted for 20% of VDC’s revenue at the beginning of this year and halved in April.

The group plans to hook all provinces up with broadband connections and networks including the next generation network (NGN), metropolitan area network (MAN) Ethernet and wireless Wifi and Wimax to boost the number of ADSL subscribers.

The current number of broadband users in Vietnam is less than 1% of the country’s population. Viettel deputy general director Nguyen Manh Hung said all operators should use mobile networks for developing broadband internet users once networks offered 3G services.

“Vietnam will have done a big job if total internet broadband penetration is 10% by 2010 and it needs support from mobile services, which have a 35% penetration rate,” said Hung.

He said in order to boost the number of internet broadband users, carriers should cut rentals for international channels for operators in order to reduce usage costs for end-users and promote content for domestic usage. International channel rentals make up 30% of $15 of production cost for an ADSL user.

The international channel still accounts for around 30% of production cost for an ADSL subscriber, while users often surf outside Vietnam due to a lack of Vietnamese content.
“The mobile network has a high number of stations and may offer broadband services once the network is redundant for providing mobile services,” Hung said.

Source: VIR