Tag Archives: Vietnam
Applications now open for LIRNEasia Young Scholar Tutorials, hosted by NUS, Singapore. Click here for info on how to apply.
Vietnam: IT, telecoms revenue up 38%
IT and telecom businesses in Vietnam achieved a revenue of more than US$5.4 billion in 2008, a 38 percent increase over 2007.
The IT industry’s revenue alone increased by 20 percent to US$3 billion, and its export turnover from electronic and telecom products reached US$2.4 billion, according to Information and Communications Minister Le Doan Hop.
Speaking at a round-up conference for the information and communication sector, Mr. Hop said this year the sector would focus on plans to bring internet services to schools and rural areas, open a news channel for foreigners and an online Q&A service on the ministry website.
By the end of 2008, the sector had registered 82.25 million telephone subscribers, or 97.5 telephones per 100 people. Of the total, 85.5 percent were mobile subscribers.
Read the full story here.
Most of Siemens bribes were for telecom
Of the 4,283 bribery payments documented by the investigators, 2,505 (more than half) were made in relation to telecom contracts. Of the total of USD 1,400.7 million disbursed, USD 813.9 million (more than half) were for telecom. However, the complaint documents only three specific cases of large bribes paid in Vietnam, Bangladesh and Nigeria, all to government officials or politicians (including functionaries in government owned telecos). These three instances account for only slightly over USD 18 million, less than 3% of the total spent on telecom. This suggests rich pickings await the investigator who starts work on the court documents.
In 2002, Siemens COM paid approximately $140,000 in bribes in connection with a tender worth approximately $35 million for the supply of equipment and services related to a Global Systems mobile network for Vietel, a government owned telecommunications provider founded by the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense. P. 27
Between 2004 and 2006, Siemens COM paid approximately $5.3 million in bribes to government officials in Bangladesh in connection with a contract with the Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (“BT’TB) to install mobile telephone services. The. total value of the contract was approximately $40.9 million. The payments ‘were made to three business consultants pursuant ..read more
Over 500m new mobile subs in Asia’s emerging economies-report
Aug 26, 2008, telecomasia.net
Asia’s emerging markets, comprising eight nations, are expected to see mobile subscriber net gains of 573 million by end-2012, breaching the one billion mark to close the year at an estimated 1.06 billion subscribers, a report from research firm Frost & Sullivan said.
In 2007, these emerging markets were home to some 487 million mobile users, accounting for 37.1% of Asia-Pacific’s total mobile subscriber base, the report said.
The report also said the mobile services sector in eight emerging Asia-Pac countries (excluding China) earned revenues of $33.27 billion in 2007. This is predicted to reach $61.35 billion by end-2013, at a CAGR of 10.7% (2007-2013).
Growing at a CAGR of 15.1% (2007-2013), the mobile subscriber base is expected to hit 1.13 billion by end-2013 to account for 46% of Asia-Pac’s total subscribers.Countries included in this study are Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam; all with mobile penetration rates of under 50%.
According to Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Jeff Teh, over half of the world’s mobile networks are believed to exist in emerging markets.
“Most mature markets in Europe, the Americas and even Asia are fast reaching saturation, adding fewer connections and offering fewer growth opportunities. As ..read more
Call to reduce intra-SAARC phone tariffs published in Bangladesh too
The op-ed piece written up on the basis of one of the LIRNEasia benchmark studies, has been published in the leading Bangladesh newspaper, Daily Star. The data and recommendations thus have been published, in various forms, in the special issue of Himal Southasian, in The Dawn, as a Choices column on LBO, and also flashed by AFP. As a result of the latter, it has got play in a number of publications, including in a Vietnam publication, the Mirror online (Sri Lanka), etc.
Telecompk.net has also started a discussion.
Indian papers were unfortunately too preoccupied with the Parliamentary drama around the confidence motion. And then Ahmedabad happened. But we keep hoping. Bhutan and Maldives may come in too.
The test of course is whether intra-SAARC prices come down. It has been reported that Sri Lanka’s largest mobile operator has dropped prices to SAARC countries to LKR 15/mt (app. USD 0.15). If this holds, we would have done something.
Detailed information on international voice prices may be found here.
Asian countries slide e-government rankings
A United Nations survey of global e-government readiness has found that many Asian countries are sliding down the rankings. Just one Asian country—South Korea—made the top ten coming in at sixth, with Japan next on 11th.
The next highest was Singapore at a surprisingly low 23rd, and Malaysia at 34th. The top 35 countries are otherwise dominated by Europe, Australasia and North America.
The biggest revelation was that most Asian countries are sliding down the rankings. Singapore was the most prominent to fall from grace, falling to 22nd from seventh position in 2005. China fell to 65 from 57, India from 87 to 113, Thailand from 46 to 62, the Philippines from 41 to 66 and Indonesia from 96 to 106.
Other countries to slide included Maldives, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Brunei and Myanmar while Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia improved their rankings. Sweden topped the rankings followed by Denmark, Norway and the United States. Read more.
India still tops on BPO; Sri Lanka stalled due to war
LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO Although seen as India’s greatest challenger in terms of its potential scale, China fared poorly for language skills, Gartner said.
China, India and Singapore all had strong government support for the promotion of their country as an offshore services location.
The political and economic environment remains a concern for many companies when moving work to offshore locations and so Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rated poorly, Gartner said.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Philippines is 2nd fastest-growing broadband market: Ovum
Total broadband growth in the Philippines from 2005 to 2006 was at 157% while Greece’s was 168%, Ovum said. The Philippines had 127,942 subscribers in 2005 and this number grew to 329,216 as of end-2006.
The cost of broadband in the Philippines is also expensive relative to average monthly disposable incomes of subscribers. The highest monthly fee in 2006 was $96.08, with the lowest at $17.28. In comparison, the highest monthly fee available in Greece was $60.91 while the lowest was $10.31.
The high price of broadband services in the Philippines, as well as in Vietnam and Indonesia, has resulted in penetration lags in consumer broadband among these Countries, Ovum said. Read more.
RP 2nd fastest-growing broadband market
BY VERONICA S. CUSI, Businessworld
THE PHILIPPINES was the second fastest-growing market for broadband worldwide in 2006, according to a study by UK-based research and consultancy firm Ovum. This was primarily due, however, to the fact that broadband is just taking off in the country, and Ovum said growth could be significantly higher if regulators allow more competition that would lead to cheaper services.
Greece took the top spot in the study, and the other countries in the top ten list were Indonesia, India, Ukraine, Ireland, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia and Turkey.
Total broadband growth in the Philippines from 2005 to 2006 was at 157% while Greece’s was 168%, Datamonitor affiliate Ovum said. The Philippines had 127,942 subscribers in 2005 and this number grew to 329,216 as of end-2006.
The rural revolution
In the remote agricultural province of Lao Cai in Vietnam a few shared community phones are being replaced with high-speed WiMAX broadband connections and VoIP telephony for thousands of residents.
In rural Cambodia, a new 3G/UMTS mobile network is being deployed for delivery of high-bandwidth wireless services, including live streaming of mobile TV channels.
In rural India, farmers can monitor crop prices and place orders for goods electronically by visiting broadband “community centers” that are taking root around the country.
All are examples of a “rural revolution” enveloping less-developed countries in Asia and around the world, made possible by advanced telecommunications technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G.
This revolution is bringing high-speed Internet access and next-generation telephony to millions of users who previously had little or no access to even the most basic telecoms services. Read more.
Rural broadband services in Vietnam
Interesting parallel to Sri Lanka’s Mahavilachchiya experiment. The only worrisome aspect is the fact that it is a fully subsidized project. I guess that they’ll spend more on evaluation only than the total spent on Mahavilachchiya including the hardware. The important thing is that all these projects need to be monitored, to see how they do after the subsidies end.
Asia: Telecom’s Rural Revolution The project in Lao Cai illustrates the trends of joint cooperation between vendors, operators and governments to tap new opportunities for economic development.
Intel Corp., the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Vietnam Data Communications, a local service provider that is part of Vietnam Post and Telecom Group (VNPT), joined together last year to deploy WiMAX in the rural agricultural province of 600,000 comprised of 25 different ethnic groups. Lao Cai is located in a mountainous area of northern Vietnam, abutting the Chinese border. There had been some limited fixed-line telephone service and DSL broadband available within the city of Lao Cai, but even these services disappeared for the bulk of the population when they stepped outside the immediate town borders.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Vietnam’s submarine cable ‘lost’ and ‘found’
Dhaka, June 1 (bdnews24.com)—Maritime thieves have stolen at least 11-kilometres Vietnamese portion of Thailand bound SEA-ME-WE3 submarine cable and sold the 100 tons of illicit cargo as scrap, reported VietNamNet Bridge online newspaper Tuesday.
Such bizarre underwater international telecoms infrastructure robbery occurred on March 25 and since then Vietnam’s Internet users have been struggling with far slower speed.
The broken cable system, named TVH, was built in 1993-1995, connecting Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong with a capacity of 560 megabits per second.
The Vietnam Telecom International (VTI) got puzzled when the cable went down. It occurred soon after the Asia Pacific region recovered from prolonged bandwidth crisis as earthquake snapped bunch of submarine cables in the Taiwanese coast
VTI called a submarine cable fixing ship from Singapore. But its crew went bonkers after detecting 11-kilometres of the cable was missing from the floor of Ca Mau Sea. The maintenance vessel went back as it never carries that many cables in the first place.
FLAG to invest $1.5 billion on new submarine cable network
FLAG Telecom plans to deploy the largest IP-based submarine cable network that will connect 60 countries, including many that currently have poor connectivity by 2009. India, Indonesia, and Philippines are among the countries that FLAG’s NGN network will have a presence in. Reliance to carry FLAG far and wide: “We live in a world where there is too much of bandwidth for some, little for others and none for many – there is unequal access to bandwidth in and across countries, continents and communities,” said Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, chairman, Reliance Communications. “FLAG NGN will democratise digital access,” he added.
FLAG NGN will comprise of our systems. FLAG NGN System 1 would cover Asia that includes India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Honk Kong. FLAG NGN System 2 would be for Africa covering Kenya, Mozambique, Republic of South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mauritius.
FLAG NGN System 3 will cater to the Mediterranean region, including Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Libya and Lebanon. And the Trans-Pacific region, including the US West Coast, Japan, China and Hong Kong, would be covered by FLAG NGN System 4.
Recent Comments