SGGP 10/02/2023 09:51

The Ministry of Information and Communications has just issued an official dispatch requesting that by September 2024 at the latest, the suspension of 2G mobile information technology nationwide must be completed.

Mobile businesses need to deploy solutions to convert subscribers to 4G and 5G smartphones, striving to achieve the goal of having less than 5% of 2G subscribers by the end of 2023.

Statistics as of September, the Ministry of Information and Communications said that there were 23.1 million 2G subscribers nationwide, a decrease of nearly 3 million subscribers compared to the same period in 2022. Of which, more than 50% of subscribers are active regularly, paying full fees in advance to network operators. These are the elderly, retired officials, farmers, people in remote areas... who only need to make calls and send normal messages on "brick" phones. Besides, there are also some customers who want to keep a nice SIM number or use expensive phones such as Mobiado or Vertu. Therefore, to ensure the rights and change usage habits for this group of customers, network operators need to carefully calculate.

Currently, for a network operator deploying new 5G mobile technology, maintaining the operation of too many parallel technologies such as 2G, 3G, 4G will cost a lot of money and be ineffective. In the world, some countries turn off 2G networks but some turn off 3G networks first. Vietnam has chosen to turn off 2G to promote the implementation of the goal in the national digital transformation program until 2025, with a vision to 2030 approved by the Prime Minister, which is to popularize 4G, 5G mobile networks and smartphones to every Vietnamese citizen.

In preparation for the shutdown of 2G, the Ministry of Information and Communications has issued national technical regulations on terrestrial mobile terminals. Accordingly, mobile terminals manufactured and imported into Vietnam must support 4G technology or higher. Currently, some network operators have also gradually turned off 2G broadcasting stations in areas with good 3G and 4G coverage and low demand for 2G.

In recent times, the Ministry of Information and Communications has directed users to proactively switch to using smartphones; mobile businesses have developed plans and supported users to switch... to achieve the common goal of turning off old technology waves; at the same time contributing to achieving the goal of popularizing smartphones, accelerating the national digital transformation process. However, the story of turning off 2G waves with more than 23 million 2G subscribers is also a big challenge in this roadmap.