Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan speaks at the workshop on June 9

Vietnam needs to avoid ineffective investment and outdated technology in the transition from 4G to 5G, Director of the Authority of Radio Frequency Management (ARFM) Doan Quang Hoan has said.

He made the remark at an international workshop in Hanoi on June 8 on spectrum management for mobile broadband and Internet of Things (IoT). The event drew representatives of ministries, telecommunications businesses and radio frequency management agencies of Vietnam, France, Laos and Myanmar.

Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan said with nearly 130 million mobile phone subscriptions, Vietnam is considered to have high density of telecom services in the world. The MoIC has recently licensed four telecom companies to provide 4G services, and they have been swiftly preparing infrastructure for the services provision.

The MoIC will devise effective policies to promote the development of information technology and telecom infrastructure, especially for mobile broadband, he noted.

Telecom services revenue reached 365.5 trillion VND (16.1 billion USD) in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 7.5 percent.

In 2017, telecom carriers began to supply 4G LTE services on the 1,800MHz band nationwide. The MoIC is preparing to auction the 2.6 GHz band so that services providers can boost the speed of their 4G network.

ARFM Director Hoan said wireless broadband is an inevitable development trend of the telecom industry. The International Telecommunication Union issued a recommendation on the vision of the 5G mobile technology and is expected to approve recommendations on technical requirements for 5G in October this year.

At the workshop, participants shared solutions to the 5G technology and urged the early preparations for 5G use in terms of policy and frequency spectrum.

According to the Next General Mobile Networks Alliance, 5G should be rolled out by 2020 to meet business and consumer demands. In addition to providing simply faster speeds, 5G networks are predicted to meet new use cases, such as the Internet of Things (internet connected devices) as well as broadcast-like services and lifeline communication in times of natural disasters.