Telecoms fail to exploit 3G

One year after the launch of 3G in Vietnam, most Vietnamese subscribers are still only using the mobile service to connect to the internet, said Deputy Director of Vinaphone Zone II Nguyen Thien Bang.

At a seminar on mobile applications in the 3G era, he also contradicted the idea held by some that 3G could replace ADSL. He said the 3G wave is unstable and not available in all areas, plus the high cost means it cannot compete with ADSL. The Marketing Director of Yahoo Vietnam said Vietnam has exploited only 5 percent of its 3G capacity so far. Many participants expressed belief that the main reason for the limited number of 3G technology-based applications is the unreasonable profit sharing model between the operators and the content providers.

When a mobile application is developed in Vietnam, the operators take 70 percent while the content providers only receive 30 percent. In contrast, at the Apple App Store the ratio is reversed, with the operator only taking 30 percent and the content provider taking 70 percent for each application sold. As a result, the development of applications in Vietnam is quite limited.

Many seminar participants agreed that Vietnam would have to wait for several years to see more optimisation of its 3G potential.

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