VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) is
considering collecting fees for additional Internet interconnection or setting
up the charges for every connection.
More Internet peering disputes reported
Under the current regulations, telecom groups have the right to connect their
networks with other enterprises’ networks and have the obligation of letting
others’ networks connect with their networks on the basis of mutual benefits.
However, more and more Internet peering dispute cases have occurred.
A senior official of the MIC’s Telecommunication Department said the network in
Vietnam is far different from the networks in other countries. Only several
telcos have infrastructure systems, while most of the others are Internet
content or domain name firms.
He also said some important issues have not been mentioned in the currently
applied legal documents on the operation of the Vietnam National Internet
Exchange VNIX. These include the regulation on the increase of the
interconnection capacity to ensure the normal quality of services once the
traffic exceeds 85 percent for 7 consecutive days.
Also according to the official, the Decree No. 25, which guides the
implementation of the Telecommunication Law, stipulates that MIC is in charge of
setting up the peering fee frames. However, in an effort of stimulate the market
development, the watchdog agency now allows telcos negotiate themselves to
define the fees.
Ngo Trong Hieu, Deputy General Director of CMC Telecom, confirmed that in late
2012, the firm many times sent petitions to MIC to report about the disputes and
request the solutions to the current problems. Some temporary solutions have
been applied, but Hieu said they would be only effective for now.
“We wish to see the necessary regulations on Internet peering to be promulgated
soon, so that we can ensure the best quality for our services,” HIeu said.
MIC may charge fees on additional interconnection
MIC has said that it may issue some more regulations on Internet peering in
order to settle the disputes among telcos. Service providers have been told to
send reports to the ministry about the methods of calculating interconnection
fee for approval and supervision.
The Telecommunication Department is considering some solutions.
In the first suggested solution, Internet firms would be classified into
different groups of Internet service providers (ISP), content service
providers…. If so, the Internet firms of the same groups would be able to have
Internet peering without having to pay fees.
In fact, the solution has been applied in the US, UK, Japan, South Korea,
Australia and France already. In these countries, peering fees are not charged
on the telcos of the same groups.
In another solution, all Internet firms would be considered as on equal footing
with each other. The peering fee would be charged on the firms which have the
gaps between the input and output capacity reaching certain levels. The fees
would be set up by MIC.
A senior executive of Viettel, one of the Vietnamese biggest telecom groups, has
confirmed that enterprises cannot negotiate with each other and that the
intervention of the watchdog agency is necessary in this case.
This has been explained by the conflict in the interests between content firms
and infrastructure firms, and among the firms with infrastructure systems.
Not only the small fish complain that they have been blocked by the big fish.
VDC, a big guy, has complained that an enterprise has blocked the accesses from
3G subscribers to the websites being hosted at VDC, which should be seen as a
violation of the Information Technology Law.
Buu Dien