How speedy is Vietnam's 4G in comparison with the rest of the world?

30-12-2015 | Vietnam Telecom

The 4G standard Viettel now applies in its trial run is LTE-A, with download speed of 300 Mbps, which is applied in many developed countries.

The 4G standard Viettel now applies in its trial run is LTE-A

Apple thường giới thiệu iPhone mới vào tháng Chín trong khi chưa thấy bất cứ The military telecom group Viettel is now testing 4G in Vung Tau City which, in theory, has the download speed of 300 Mbps, equivalent to Category 6 LTE (Cat 6), the LTE-A commonly used in developed countries. They began using LTE-A technology with 300 Mbps speed not that long ago.

In South Korea, which is believed to have the largest coverage in the world (97 percent), for example, LTE-A technology was introduced for the first time in July 2013 by SK Telecom. However, the speed in theory then was 150 Mbps only (Cat 4). Only since 2014 did the network operator begin commercializing the Cat 6 standard with the 300 Mbps speed. Later, 300 Mbps was considered the standard for LTE-A.

In other markets including Hong Kong and Singapore, the standard was introduced in February and May 2014. Meanwhile, Japanese NTT Docomo only began providing 4G LTE-A 300 Mbps in March 2015.

In fact, it is not too difficult to deploy high speed LTE-A, or 4G+. Thieu Phuong Nam, director of Qualcomm Indochina said that telecom groups can upgrade 4G by utilizing carrier signal technology, without replacing the infrastructure system, but they just need more antennas and suitable software.

Of the most important factors which determine the popularity of high-speed network is the readiness of mobile devices. At present, there are only about 30 smartphone models with LTE Cat 6 support, which can fully exploit the download speed of 300 Mbps. These are high-end smartphone models launched in 2015.

Some products such as Samsung Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge+, Sony Xperia Z3+, Xperia Z5, or LG G4, and G Flex 2 now support Cat 10 which allows the download speed of a maximum 450 Mpbs.

Experts predicted that the smartphone models to be marketed in 2016 may use Snapdragon 820 which supports LTE Cat 12 with a speed of 600 Mpbs. In theory, 4G LTE can offer a speed of 1 Gbps at maximum.

The download and upload speed of 4G, like 3G network, however, is actually not that fast.

Vietnamese network operators, for example, now provide 3G with a speed of up to 42 Mbps in theory. However, the average 3G speed in Vietnam is 1.9 Mbps only, according to Tech in Asia (June 2015).

The same thing is occurring with 4G. In New Zealand, Singapore and Romania, the speeds are 36, 33 and 30 Mbps, respectively, according to OpenSignal (September 2015).

Vietnamnet.vn