As part of the government’s plan to create incentive for domestically manufactured 5G products, three major Vietnamese enterprises have officially announced their 5G research and production roadmap at a recent seminar held by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), Sai Gon Giai phong reported.

Illustrative image (Source: New Era Technology) 

Viettel, one of Vietnam’s largest telecommunication companies has approved a budget of 500 billion VND (about 21.5 million USD) for developing 5G microcells and is investing in a 200 billion VND lab (about 8 million USD) for 5G technology, said Deputy General Director of Viettel Nguyen Cuong Hoang. They also plan to test 5G microcell services around June 2020 and 5G macrocell services on Viettel’s internal network.

Meanwhile, Vingroup, a Vietnamese conglomerate is focusing on researching and establishing lab rooms, said Vingroup’s Head of Embedded Software Department of its IT sector, VinSmart. Their first 5G phone is expected to be launched from July 2020, and telecommunications devices are to be tested starting August 2020. Currently VinSmart is also working with Cisco and Intel to develop 5G network devices.

The third developer at the seminar, FPT, said they set up a group of engineers between 2014 and 2018, and aims at providing full package 5G solutions during the period of 2019-2023.

Vinsmart representative expressed their request for the MIC to create incentives for frequency licensing to test its 5G devices as the company is not specialized in telecommunications.

On the other hand, Viettel requested that the MIC help it reach out to foreign experts and also promote Viettel’s 5G chipset products to domestic and foreign partners.

Speaking at the seminar, experts from Global Foundries, a semiconductor chip manufacturing company from the US said that the Government needs to create a demand and a market for 5G chip products designed by Vietnamese companies. They also noted that such companies should work together instead of competing to alleviate the financial burden.

MIC Deputy Minister Pham Tam spoke highly of efforts to develop 5G technology of the enterprises and shares from experts of Global Foundries, while asking the Department of Information Technology to create all the incentives for Vietnamese chipset manufacturers and act as an emissary to connect them with foreign technologies.