The number of 5G subscriptions in Vietnam is forecast to reach 6.3 million in 2025, according to a report on 5G development in Southeast Asia by the network equipment maker Cisco.
According to a press release, Vietnam and Singapore are expected to be the first countries in the region to roll out the latest wireless communications technology in 2020-2021.
The report noted that the market penetration in Vietnam in the early stage of 5G implementation will be lower than Indonesia and Thailand, but growth is projected to accelerate in the later stage.
The early rollout of 5G services could help Vietnamese mobile carriers increase revenues by US $300 million a year, starting from 2025.
However, they need to invest about US $1.5-2.5 billion in technology during the 2020-2025 period.
Southeast Asian countries need to address the slow release of frequency spectrums for 5G services while carriers should introduce appropriate 5G services and prices to encourage users to switch to higher speeds, the report said.
For corporate customers, mobile operators are advised to create new features, combine enhanced speeds with solutions and applications so that they can understand and expand added-value services.
According to experts, 5G’s higher speeds and lower latency will help bring a wide range of services to users, such as super-fast internet, high-resolution video streaming, cloud-based entertainment, augmented reality-enabled interactive content.
The 5G technology will act as the foundation for large-scale internet of things (IoT) applications for e-government building.
A report released in 2017 said that the impact of digital transformation in the Asia-Pacific region was an increase of about 6% in its GDP. The figure is expected to be 25% this year and 60% by 2021.
Research shows that digital transformation also increased labour productivity by 15% in 2017, which is expected to be 21% by 2020.
Last year, the country’s e-government development index ranked 88th out of 193 countries, of which the online public services index jumped 10 places to rank 59th out of 193 countries in comparison to 2016.
The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) recently announced it has required network operators to upgrade mobile number portability rates to 80%.
Statistics from the MIC showed that the number of successful network transfers from the beginning to the end of the third quarter of this year reached 77.3%.
Among the carriers, Vietnamobile has not been able to raise the successful network transfer rate following the direction of the Ministry of Information and Communications to over 70%. Its current rate is 60%.
The Vietnam Telecommunications Authority (VNTA) has asked network operators to continue improving the network transfer process as well as circular amendments guiding the deployment of network switching services to create maximum ease for users.
The VNTA is a ministerial unit that performs the advisory and regulatory functions over the telecommunications sectors nationwide.