The pilot of 5G technology is planned to be carried out in 2019 in Vietnam so that in 2020, the country will become one of the first in the world to formally offer this service.

This is one important task to boost the digital economy growth in Vietnam.

On this May 10, Viettel successfully made a phone call in the 5G network using an Ericsson device, preceded by the complete integration of the first 5G transceiver station in Hoan Kiem Lake area (located in Hanoi) and the pilot service on all allowed bandwidths.

As said by a representative of Viettel, the connection speed in those experiments ranged from 600 - 700Mbps, an equivalence of the 5G network by Verizon in the US.

In the officially connection event, the real 5G mobile network speed of Viettel between two terminals reached 1.5 – 1.7 Gbps, much faster than the theoretical limit of the 4G LTE network and the same as the speed of commercial optical cables.

This event marked Vietnam as one of the first in the world to pilot 5G technology to serve the digital transformation process of the nation in the near future, ready for Industry 4.0 in all fields.

On April 25, the Ministry of Information and Communications approved MobiFone’s proposal to pilot 5G free of charge, to be carried out from April 23, 2019 to April 22, 2020.

This network provider will offer super-hi-speed services like eMBB to its customers to meet entertainment demands like online music listening, online video watching (HD, UHD 4K), or online real-time game playing (AR, VR). At the moment, MobiFone is hurriedly completing its preparation for this pilot.

VNPT, one other giant telecommunications business in Vietnam, stated that it needs a strong Research & Development force to participate and master the 5G ecosystem from networks, foundation platforms to provide services and applications, to information security.

Therefore, this company has lately focused on investing in R&D activities and increased collaborations with other leading technology firms to perfect its human resources.

Recently, VNPT has signed an agreement with Nokia Group to establish a research lab on technology and solution, application for 5G mobile network.

They are going to shared the latest research information and results in three years, with the estimated value of around $15 million.

VNPT has already submitted the request to pilot 5G technology to the Ministry of Information and Communications.