Customers use mobile network services. Viet Nam Multimedia Corp will have its virtual mobile network licence revoked after failing to provide a service within the scheduled time limit. — VNS Photo Thai Ha

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Viet Nam Multimedia Corp (VTC) will have its virtual mobile network licence revoked after failing to provide a service within the scheduled time limit, according to the Ministry of Information and Communication.

The move closes the door on the virtual mobile network segment in Viet Nam four years since the first licence was granted to Dong Duong Telecom Joint Stock Company in 2009. Last year, Dong Duong was also the first company to have it licence withdrawn. It was followed by FPT.

The ministry in October last year sent a letter of ultimatum to three companies that had been licensed to provide mobile virtual network services, urging them to commence operations as soon as possible.

According to the Law of Telecommunications, a company that receives a licence to provide a service must implement it within two years or face losing it.

Nguyen Hoang Phong, director of VTC Digicom, a telecom affiliate of VTC, admitted that increasing competition in the mobile market had reduced the attractiveness of the once booming trade.

Meanwhile, Dong Duong Telecom once said it would team up with Viettel to open its service, and VTC said it would collaborate with EVN Telecom. However, none of them have shown any sign of making their projects a reality, attributing the fact to the overcrowded mobile market.

FPT's former general director Truong Dinh Anh said the market was being dominated by the "big three" mobile network operators, Viettel, Vinaphone and MobiFone, which had a combined market share of 95 per cent.

"Coupled with low call charges, we no longer see an opportunity here," he told the media last year.

New mobile subscriptions in Viet Nam have skyrocketed in recent years, reaching 19 million in 2006, 25 million in 2007, 74 million in 2008, 98 million in 2009 and 130 million by the end of June 2013.

A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications service that does not own the radio spectrum of wireless network infrastructure over which the MVNO provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile network operator to obtain bulk access to network services at wholesale rates, then sets retail prices independently. — VNS