Viettel - Breaking the Monopoly in Vietnam's Telco Market

The Vietnam Military Telecoms Company, operating under the trademark Viettel, is well known as a telecommunications supplier in Vietnam. It made its first step into the commercial telecommunications market by supplying long distance calling services via VoIP, namely "178 - your saving code", marking the first time Vietnamese users could choose their telecommunications service provider.

Breaking the monopoly in Vietnam’s telecommunication market

Up to now, Viettel’s 178 service has been used to contact to 32 cities and provinces of Vietnam as well as countries around the world. In addition to the post-paid service, it has now deployed pre-paid services 1788 and 1789 in order to increase its range of offerings to users. At present, the pre-paid card 1789 is the only VoIP of its kind in the Vietnam market. Vietnamese overseas or foreigners in Vietnam can also take advantage of a service called Home Country Direct (HCD), a service which allows users to pay for their call after they return home, instead of paying upfront in countries that they visit on business.

Viettel has been highly appreciated not only for its role as a supplier of advanced technology services, but also for its breakthrough of the monopoly in the Vietnam telecommunications market. With its simultaneous transformations in infrastructure and modern technology, which can automatically divide into 55 separate channels to cities and provinces in Vietnam, Viettel now has the ability to supply organisations or individuals with dedicated subscription channels if required. This method allows each company to build its own telecommunications network with broadband and an open spectrum in order to better serve their business and activities.

Since October 9^th, 2002, the company has operated the 1278 Internet service in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. To date the company has researched and supplied a wide range of services for users, such as complete package ADSL services (with a fixed monthly subscription fee, users can maximize their usage time without incurring extra fees); and ADSL homeC and ADSL homeE packages (fee is calculated based upon the amount of content downloaded or time used).

Benefits for users

Viettel is regarded as a company which has provided great benefits for users with their service offerings and promotion programmes. Such programmes as “Win Mercedes by calling service 178”, “Travel to Europe with 178” or most recently, the promotion “Lucky house on calling 178”, have helped to develop the Vietnam telecommunications market. Domestic and foreign residents alike in Vietnam use Viettel’s services with confidence and satisfaction. It is well known that the “Lucky house on calling 178” promotion has been applied for every fixed line telephone subscriber using the inter-province and international calling service 178 and service pre-paid card 1789 in 30 cities and provinces in Vietnam where Viettel’s 178 service is available. On October 12th, 2004, the company handed over the special prize of a 100-gold tael – valued house for a user in Vietnam, 10 Yamaha Mio motorbikes as first prizes and ten Alcatel mobile phones as second prizes for users. According to an official from the Vietnam Trade Promotion Bureau, in Vietnam Viettel has been the only telecommunications supplier offering clients so many service options and benefits. Viettel’s services, which aim to give clients as many benefits as possible, will surely become the choice of more and more Vietnamese as well as foreign clients over time.

• Doan Phuong