A report of the Telecommunication Agency shows that Vietnam had had 4.57 million FTTH internet subscribers by the end of April 2016. The number of FTTH subscribers has increased rapidly in the last three years.
According to Dau Tu, in the first six months of the year, the number of FTTH subscribers increased by 30 percent over the end of 2015 and 600,000 ADSL subscribers stopped subscriptions.
In the first four months of the year, Vietnam had 940,000 new subscribers, increasing by 26 percent over the end of 2015. The coverage (the ratio of the number of broadband lines on the number of households) in Vietnam has reached 37 percent, which means that more than one in every three households use fixed broadband service.
In April 2013, Vietnam only had 210,000 FTTH subscribers, while the figure had reached 4.5 million by April 2016, according to Buu Dien. This means that the figure soared by 21 times within three years, proof that shows the FTTH subscription boom.
The latest report on the world’s internet situation by Akamai Technologies showed that Vietnam was recognized as the country which had the highest growth rate in internet connection with the speed of over 10 Mbps among the 144 surveyed countries.
The indicators shown by Akamai proved that Vietnam’s internet saw good improvement in comparison with other countries in Asia Pacific and the world.
Large telecom groups all have reported a considerable increase in the number of subscribers.
In 2014, FPT Telecom held 6 percent of the market share, while the figure rose to 25.4 percent in 2015 with the subscriber growth rate of 1,900 percent. Meanwhile, VNPT reported the growth rate of 441 percent and Viettel 314 percent.
Experts said they can see very high demand for broadband internet. The broadband trend has paved the way for the development of digital content services such as IPTV, VoD, Video Conference and IP Camera.
The internet market now in a technology war among FTTH service subscribers, according to Dau Tu. Telcos compete with each other not by reducing the service fee but by launching integrated service packages that improve speed.
In Hanoi, VNPT has increased the speed by 25 percent for FiberVNN packages, while the service fee remains unchanged. In early 2016, SCTV upgraded the speed for the service packages provided to customers in Da Nang City and Dong Nai province.
