VietNamNet Bridge – In the competition among IPTV service providers, the big guy
VNPT (Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group) has bigger advantages than
others thanks to its existing strong infrastructure for fixed telephone line and
ADSL.
VNPT runs fast on IPTV race
A report shows that Vietnam now has 1 million IPTV subscribers who are using the
services of VNPT, Viettel, FPT and VTC. Technologically, IPTV can bring more
utilities to users than cable TV, satellite or terrestrial digital TV.
Meanwhile, IPTV services are cheaper than other types of pay-TV with the
subscription fee of VND60,000-135,000 a month. There are about 60-100 channels
serving clients together with many added value service packages.
According to Nguyen Van Khoa, General Director of FPT Telecom, the biggest
advantage of IPTV is the high interaction between service providers and clients
and the capability of providing services to the individuals’ orders. Users can
store their loved programs for watching later at any time.
Especially, IPTV allows users to watch programs with many kinds of terminal
devices such as TV, mobile phones or tablets.
However, IPTV has two big disadvantages that it uses the fixed telephone line
and it requires broadband. In other words, in order to provide high quality IPTV
services, enterprises need to have good fixed line infrastructure.
Therefore, VNPT, with its existing infrastructure system, is believed to have
the best conditions to provide high quality IPTV. The system allows VNPT to
provide 3 services on the same transmission line, fixed telephone, ADSL and MyTV.
In fact, VNPT really wants to develop IPTV, because the TV service is believed
to help VNPT retain fixed telephone subscribers. The telecom group has witnessed
a high number of fixed line subscribers leaving recently in the context of the
strong development of mobile phones.
Nguyen Xuan Vinh, Head of the Business Division of VNPT Thanh Hoa province, said
IPTV has been developing very well in the province with some 20,000 MyTV
subscribers and 10,000 LamSonTV subscribers.
VASC, a subsidiary of VNPT, the developer of MyTV service, has reported that it
has got 800,000 subscribers within 3 years and 20,000 new subscribers a month
now.
A senior executive of VASC noted the number of IPTV subscribers grows rapidly in
the areas where the national TV wave is weak, and in remote areas, where the
national TV still cannot reach to.
IPTV boom?
Despite the high number of Internet subscribers, 4.3 million, experts don’t
think IPTV would be popular in the future, because the service always sets high
requirements on broadband. The fixed line subscribers located over 1 kilometer
far away from the technique boxes, or located on old cable line, would not be
able to access the services.
To date, VNPT has some 2.7 million broadband Internet subscribers, and it
expects to have 2 million MyTV subscribers at maximum.
Especially, it is not a profitable business, because MyTV can only develop in
remote markets, where users register low-cost service packages.
Viettel and FPT are believed to meet difficulties in developing IPTV because of
the limitations in fixed line infrastructure. Viettel now has 400,000 fixed line
and ADSL subscribers, and tens of thousands of NetTV subscribers. It has
1,000-2,000 new subscribers a month.
In fact, NetTV is just a service which allows to provide more utilities to
clients, while Viettel does not intend to make heavy investment in the service.
Buu Dien