Telstra ends 17-year cooperation work in Vietnam
Telstra Corp. Ltd. has ended a 17-year cooperation
with Vietnam's state monopoly carrier Vietnam Posts
and Telecommunications Corp. (VNPT) but does not
rule out returning to work there in future, Telstra has
said.
Telstra was one of the first international
telecommunications companies to enter Vietnam
following the country's reunification in 1975, and for a
few years located its Asia-Pacific regional
headquarters in the capital Hanoi.
Telstra's involvement began in 1986, when it
effectively reconnected Vietnam to the world's
telecommunications network. It built a satellite earth
station for routing Vietnam's international voice traffic
through an Australian gateway, replacing 12
international circuits using UHF radio routed through
Moscow.
In 1990, Telstra and VNPT signed an agreement to
develop Vietnam's fixed-line telecommunications
under a deal known as a Business Cooperation
Contract (BCC), the only format under which foreign
countries could operate in Vietnam's
telecommunications business.
The work that Telstra carried out since then "has
done an excellent job in helping Vietnam build a
modern telecommunications network and contributed
significantly in leading us into the digital world,"
Pham Long Tran, VNPT's chief executive officer said
in a statement Tuesday.
Among the infrastructure built by Telstra as part of its
US$237 million investment are:
-- a 2.5G bps (bits per second) Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) optical
fiber backbone trunk from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City which provided the first
secure, high capacity communications trunks from north to south.
-- the construction of satellite earth stations in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and
Binh Duong, and international gateway exchanges in these locations as well
as Da Nang;
-- the T-V-H submarine optical fiber cable system linking Thailand, Vietnam
and Hong Kong
The decision to close its Vietnam operations does not mean the end of
Telstra's interest in the country, though.
"We have not cut ties with Vietnam, we maintain a very good relationship
with VNPT and have expressed an interest in working with them in future,"
said Graeme Salt, a spokesman for Telstra International. "It was
commercially a good deal for us, and we have simply come to the end of the
timeframe for the BCC."
A BCC is a fixed-term contract which does not give foreign investors
responsibility for day-to-day operation of the business, and with a limited
time to recoup their investment. It has often been criticized by foreign
investors in Vietnam as an unwieldy and outmoded form of investment in a
fast-moving commercial world, a view shared by Telstra.
"That has been a big issue -- BCC was built for a different time," said Salt. "If
we go back in we'll be looking for something more collaborative."
By David Legard - IDG News Service - June 20, 2003.
Vietnam deploys Alcatel's MMS
PARIS - MobiFone has selected Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA), the world's leading
mobile communications solutions provider, to help roll out the country's first Multimedia
Messaging Service (MMS) in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. MobiFone is the brand name of the
GSM network operated by Vietnam Mobile Telecom Services Company (VMS) in cooperation
with Comvik International Vietnam (CIV).
With the number of mobile subscribers in Vietnam almost tripling in the past two years, demand
for advanced mobile data services is growing. One of the unique features of Alcatel's
industry-differentiating MMS solution is the interoperability between network platforms and
mobile terminals from different vendors, which will ensure the fast deployment of MMS into the
market.
Mobile subscribers will enjoy interesting mobile applications such as music albums and
multimedia news. Thanks to Alcatel's Charging Proxy solutions, MobiFone will be able to market
flexible prepaid and postpaid packages to suit the different needs of its subscribers.
The Multimedia Messaging Services Center (MMSC) will be installed in MobiFone's soon-to-be
launched GPRS network, which is also supplied by Alcatel. MobiFone subscribers will have the
opportunity to take advantage of video messaging, Unified Messaging and much more.
Moreover, Alcatel's MMS is efficiently bundled with other messaging applications into one single
storage device, the MMBox, for all convergent voice and data messages, it is advantageous for
MobiFone's interoperability.
"Alcatel's MMS solution is the natural choice for MobiFone as we seek to launch new, exciting
multimedia messaging services," said DO VU ANH, chief technical engineer of VMS. "The true
interoperability of Alcatel's MMS solution and its flexible billing feature will help us progressively
increase revenues while offering compelling, value-added services to our subscribers."
"Vietnam will start to see some growth in the mobile data segment this year with the
provisioning of applications such as MMS. Pyramid expects to see mobile data revenue growth
averaging close to 135% annually over the next five years in Vietnam," said Connie Hsu, Asia
Pacific manager, Pyramid Research.
Denis Petitjean, Asia Pacific Vice President, Alcatel's mobile and fixed solutions activities, said,
"MobiFone regards our unique competence and global experience in building solutions for their
MMS highly. We are committed to adding distinctive business value to MobiFone, and benefiting
the people of Vietnam with the latest mobile services."
Unstrung.com/Alcatel - June 20, 2003.
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