VinaPhone has been providing 4G services on Phu Quoc Island since November after a year of preparation. — Photo doanhnhansaigon.vn

Leading telecom service providers Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone are scrambling to put up base transceiver stations and pilot 4G services to be ready to officially offer them this quarter.

VinaPhone has been providing 4G services on Phu Quoc Island since November after a year of preparation.

“VinaPhone will focus on the speed and stability of 4G services,” Luong Manh Hoang, deputy general director of VNPT and chairman of VNPT VinaPhone, told Dau Tu (Viet Nam Investment Review) newspaper.

Next it plans to offer the services in Ha Noi, HCM City and 10 other cities and provinces this quarter.

It will install around 21,000 4G base transceiver stations to provide the services country-wide this year.

Unlike Vinaphone, Viettel will provide free 4G SIM cards to all its customers at 1,600 points by March 1.

During the Lunar New Year holidays, it set up 74 broadcast vehicles with four times the capacity of normal base transceiver stations and able to support 2G, 3G and 4G services to prevent the usual network logjam.

Its deputy general director, Hoang Son, revealed that right after getting the 4G licence Viettel had begun to invest in infrastructure and equipment. “Providing 4G SIMs is one of our final tasks before providing 4G services in the first quarter this year.”

Like Viettel, MobiFone has already started to issue free 4G SIMs to customers, with a million already handed out. The programme will last from January 25 to March 31.

Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan recently instructed relevant authorities to prepare for auctioning the 2.6GHz frequency before the third quarter of this year.

He also called on all mobile phone service providers to quickly and safely deploy 4G services country-wide. — VNS