In March 2013, Vietnam's large telecom company, CMC Telecom, and cable TV service provider, VTCV, announced plans to provide cable broadband service in Vietnam starting from August 2013.
The new broadband service will be branded as GigaNet Home with download speed between 2Mbps and 10 Mbps. CMC Telecom announced that the monthly cost of GigaNet will be 10 to 15 percent less than currently available ADSL services in Vietnam.
At present, ADSL broadband service owns nearly 100% of Vietnam’s 4.5 million fixed broadband market while cable broadband market share is estimated to be less than 5% of total fixed broadband subscription.
The recent agreement between CMC Telecom and VTCV will allow existing cable TV subscribers to get bundle services from VTCV. Customers will be able to save monthly service fees if they get both broadband and TV service from the same service provider, which would possibly make DSL subscribers switch to the cable operators. However, CMC and VTCV will need to make sure their quality of service is good enough to compete with DSL operators. However, the entrance of cable broadband services definitely boosts competition in the broadband market, and provides consumers with more choices in Vietnam.
