Vietnam Mobile Quality Report

Data Collection Period:
01 March 2024 - 31 May 2024
Publishing date:
June 2024

Introduction

The Vietnamese mobile market comprises several operators, of which three have their own networks with nation-wide coverage: Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone. Thus, the network situation for these MNOs acts as a trustworthy barometer of the network situation in the country. A good knowledge of the network situation also allows the customers to perform fully informed decisions.

The objective of this report is to provide a summary of the network situation in Vietnam for these three carriers.

This report provides a quick overview of the network situation based on the following KPIs:

  • Disconnection time: daily average minutes that the users from a MNO have had only emergency coverage or no coverage.
  • 4G and 5G time: percentage of time that the users from a MNO have had 4G and, if available, 5G coverage (including 5G NSA and 5G SA).
  • Network status in the Common Coverage Area: an analysis of the network status, based on the signal strength and the signal quality, for the areas where all two MNOs provide coverage.
  • Call type: percentage of use of each call type by operator. This shows which technologies each of their customers primarily use.
  • Mobile network latency: percentage of customers on different latency ranks. The ranks are selected according to several performance thresholds.

Summary

The Vietnamese telecommunications market is controlled by three operators with their own networks that together hold 95,2% of the market: Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone. In this competition to increase its customer base, Viettel is the number 1 operator in Vietnam with 56,39% of the market. Its immediate competitors are VinaPhone, with 20,9% of the market and MobiFone with 17,9%.

Each operator's network performance is very similar. However, there are some notable differences between them.

If we take into account the disconnection time, Viettel is the operator that remains without coverage for the least amount of time compared to its competitors.

MobiFone is the operator that offers the best quality of 4G coverage, both in area and in measurements, as it offers a 35% of the area and a 39% of the measurements with a quality rated as at least good.

If we look at the types of calls, Viettel customers use more VoLTE (73%) compared to their competitors, who use VoLTE for 71% of calls (in the case of VinaPhone) and 61% of calls (in the case of MobiFone).

Finally, regarding latency, in general terms, MobiFone has better latency than its competitors, with 81% of its measurements being rated as at least good latency.

The main key figures are the following:

  • The three main operators (Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone) in Vietnam provide 4G coverage to their customers at least 80% of the time.
  • 5G is still in the implementation phase in the country and does not yet have 5G users.
  • VoLTE calls are especially relevant for three operators, accounting for at least 61% of total calls.
  • At least 74% of measurements from all operators have good enough latency for a decent experience in all possible types of use.

Methodology

In the following pages an in-depth description of each analyzed KPI can be found, including the methodology and rationale behind them. At a more general level, the following paragraph describes the data collection methodology.

At a more general level, Weplan Analytics collects crowdsourced data from more than 200 million devices in 31 countries. For this analysis, 5400 million measurements collected between March and May 2024 were used.

The map next to this paragraph shows the density of measurements taken throughout Vietnam by Weplan Analytics.

As the three aforementioned MNOs serve their networks to other parties (such as VMNOs, due to roaming agreements or as part of emergency coverage) they have been filtered by the network provider reported in the SIM card.

More details about the methodology can be found here.

Connectivity



Connectivity: Daily disconnection time

The following graphic shows the disconnection time as the average number of minutes that each customer of each MNO experiences disconnections throughout the day. Disconnection time includes moments when a customer has no coverage at all (such as underground parkings, inside elevators, so far away from an antenna that connection is not possible...) or moments when a customer only has emergency coverage, that is, the ability to perform only emergency calls. This disconnected time may (and, in most cases, will) be discontinuous, and is the average of the daily disconnection time for all users.

Among Vietnamese operators, Viettel has the shortest daily disconnection time, with only 5 minutes of daily disconnections.

Connectivity: 4G and 5G time

As a result of the development of 5G technology, old technologies such as the 2G and 3G networks are being turned off with the aim of freeing up electromagnetic spectrum to make room for more modern technologies such as 4G and 5G. This is because the frequencies are limited, so it is necessary to turn off the old ones so that the new ones can occupy those frequencies. Thus, one of the main objectives of operators is to guarantee at least adequate 4G coverage, and for those that already meet this objective, the focus turns to 5G.

Regarding 4G connectivity, Viettel is the operator with the best 4G coverage time, with 95% of the time. VinaPhone follows with 82% time in 4G coverage, and MobiFone with 80%.

5G penetration and usage

Although the first 5G tests were carried out in Vietnam in 2020, 5G is still in the implementation phase.

In May 2021, under the testimony of the Department of Telecommunications (Ministry of Information and Communications), the country's three largest mobile networks, Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone, signed a trial agreement to share the 5G network for an early deployment of the 5G commercial service nationwide.

In March 2024, Viettel and VinaPhone became the first two mobile networks in Vietnam to successfully bid for the right to use 5G spectrum for 15 years; licensed by the Ministry of Information and Communications to establish a 5G mobile network and provide land mobile information services using 5G technology.

In recent times, the two networks have tested 5G on a large scale in provinces and cities across the country. However, the results extracted from this network would not be representative of the country due to its testing nature.

At the time of licensing, network operators committed to deploy telecommunications networks and officially provide telecommunications services no later than one year after obtaining the license. Investing in 3,000 stations based on commitment requirements after 2 years from the date of licensing.

Therefore, it is likely that we will see 5G coverage deployments very soon as operators officially market it.

4G and 5G network status

There are two main network performance indicators used to address the network status: signal strength and signal quality. Each technology has its own measurements, but two great categories can be established:

  • Very Good: the network performance for all usages should be excellent.
  • Good: the network performance for all usages may present occasional difficulties but is good overall.
  • Fair: most network network-dependent usages (such as calls or data usage) will have at least a decent performance.
  • Degraded: network usage may be unstable and unreliable but allows for basic usage such as calls with acceptable quality and very slow data transfer rate.
  • Very Degraded: apart from emergency calls network usage is nearly impossible.

There are two ways to analyze these categories: by percentage of covered area or by percentage of measurements.

Most measurements take place in urban areas, where coverage is better.

However, it is important to note that in most countries the majority of the territory is not urban, so the percentage of area with a problematic network situation may be different from the percentage of measurements with a problematic network situation.

In general, all operators offer decent coverage in the common coverage area in Vietnam.

MobiFone presents the best result with 80% of the area rated as at least fair. Following VinaPhone with 75% and Viettel with 74%.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that MobiFone is the operator with the largest area rated as at least good, with 35%.

If you look at measurements instead of area, the general situation is very similar. VinaPhone and MobiFone are the operator with the best results, tied with 70% of the measurements are classified as, at least, fair. It is followed by Viettel with 69%.

Call type percentage

Although 2G and 3G technologies allow the use of data, the development of 4G and 5G has left these technologies largely relegated to use in phone calls.

However, not all customers can benefit from VoLTE calls, since in order for them to be used, the following conditions must be met:

  1. Your MNO must provide 4G and VoLTE.
  2. They must have a phone capable of making VoLTE calls and a mobile plan that includes VoLTE.
  3. Your phone must be approved by the MNO and the manufacturer to make VoLTE calls.

The last condition means that a customer, without changing their phone, can have VoLTE with one operator, but not have it with another. When a 4G connected customer without VoLTE capability (for any reason) attempts to make a call, a handover process to the 2G or 3G network occurs.

This process, depending on the method applied, is called CSFB (the most common) or SRVCC. In addition, there is also VoWiFi (Voice over Wi-Fi) technology, which is used when a Wi-Fi network is available.

In Vietnam, VoLTE technology is the most used by Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone customers. It is in the Viettel operator where we find the highest percentage of use of VoLTE calls, with 73%, followed by VinaPhone with 71% and MobiFone with 61%.

Latency status

Latency is the measurement of how much time it takes for the information to be transmitted between the user and the network. A lower latency means a faster, and smoother network experience, whereas a higher latency means that the network experience will not be as good, or even unusable. This makes latency a good indicator for user experience. We have divided latency in four main groups:

  • Excellent latency: very smooth user experience, even with the most data-intensive usage, such as gaming or 4K streaming.
  • Good latency: good user experience, although gaming may not be as fluid and 4K may present occasional problems.
  • Degraded latency: mediocre user experience. Gaming and 4K are either uncomfortable or impossible, videochat may present noticeable lag, messaging with multimedia may take a long time to load and loading a web may be slow.
  • Bad latency: essentially unusable network. Only the lightest usage, such as sending messages without multimedia works decently.

The three MNOs present a notable latency situation, with at least 74% of their measurements rated as good or excellent.

MobiFone leads this category, with 81% of its measurements rated good or excellent. They are followed by VinaPhone with 77% and Viettel with 74%.

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