All four telecom firms permitted to pilot Wimax in Vietnam (VNPT, Viettel, VTC and FPT Telecom) agree that Wimax has high potential for development, especially in remote and far-flung areas. However, after more than a year of testing, the plan for official introduction of Wimax services within 2007 has not been realised.
Around the world, Wimax (World Interoperability for Microwave Access) technology is a new platform providing wireless broadband access for fixed, portable and mobile devices. According to experts, Wimax will soon outstrip current technologies like Wifi or 3G, because it has a much faster broadband connectivity over a much larger area.
Wifi and Wimax technologies can provide broadband connectivity for laptop users within a hotspot area or a building, but a Wimax hotspot has much wider coverage than Wifi. Thus, Wimax needs fewer hotspots. The rise in Wifi users also causes reduced access speed, therefore users expect early launching of Wimax technology.
According to Wimax service pilot companies, pilot implementations of Wimax are going smoothly and all four companies are ready to activate the service. However, customers, especially in remote and mountainous areas, have not embraced Wimax services
To register for fixed Wimax service, customers have to pay US$300-400 for a modem. Meanwhile, quality ADSL service is around US$60 and the cost is lower during promotional programmes with free modems or cables. Thus, Wimax service received little support from customers. Wimax has so far been unable to compete with other broadband services in terms of prices.
The implementation of Mobile Wimax services also encountered difficulties, a VTC representative said, noting that, “VTC planned to provide Wimax services for mobile device users, but we are unsuccessful without terminals.” In fact, three world-leading terminal producers, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, have tried to manufacture terminals for Wimax technology but the cost was high in the testing period. In addition, the Wimax standard has not been approved by Wimax Forum until this year’s end. Mr Le Van Khuong, Director of VTC Software Technology Development Division, said Vietnam cannot have a full Wimax network within 2007. This year, providers will continue testing the technology and adding services.
In short, the picture for Wimax technology use in Vietnam remains unclear, depending heavily on the action of service providers.
Nguyen Thoa
Vietnamese
