Development of ICT in Vietnam - some issues for scientists
 

Dr. Tran Duc Lai

Vice Minister

MINISTRY OF POST and TELEMATICS

 

 

 

Today I am very glad to have a chance coming back to the Hanoi University of Technology and to make a speech in the important scientific Conferences organized on the occasion of 50th anniversary of Hanoi University of Technology (HUT).

 

First of all, on behalf of Ministry of Post & Telematics and all former students of HUT who are working in the ICT sectors, I warmly congratulate to the 50th anniversary of HUT. Congratulation to the great achievements which HUT in general and especially the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications has gained. During last 50 years, generations after generations of students from the University has become the crucial forces on all scientific and technology fields with many leading experts, scientific works, valuable projects. They directly contributed to the industrialisation and modernisation process of the country. Particularly, many generations of students from the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications of HUT have taken the important responsibilities in the ICT sector – a spearhead economic sector of our country.

 

At this conference, I also would like warmly congratulate the Vietnamese scientists from everywhere in the country, the international scientists from different countries in the regions, as well as in the world who come here to attend this important conferences with more than 300 scientific reports and research works. This is really meaningful forum. It really makes a contribution to the course of scientific and technology development in general, and to the ICT development, in particular.

 

In expecting to get more contributions from scientists to the development of ICT sector, I would like to take this opportunity to  briefly introduce the prominent achievements of ICT during last 20 years of ‘Doi moi’ (renovation) and highlight the ICT development strategy in the future.

 

After 20 years of renovation policy, along with the important achievements on all socio-economic sectors, ICT sector have made a progress in all the aspects such as: improving capabilities, continuous modernisation, shortening the gap with the countries in the region and in the world in about decades, creating active conditions for economic integration process, consolidating security and defense and serving for the industrialisation and modernisation process of the country. We can be proud to say that all generations of HUT have made a significant contribution to the above achievements.

 

Before 1986, because of economic crisis, the Post and Telecommunication sector managed a small network with backward of technology, poor in services. The livelihood of cadres, workers and civil servants is still fraught with many difficulties.

Thanks to the directions of the renovation policy of the Country, on the base of the estimation of situations inside of Vietnam and trends of telecommunication development in the world, the Post and Telecommunication sector has defined a strategy for renovation by making the courage decisions: transit from the subsidized mechanism to a market oriented mechanism: “self - borrow, self - pay and take responsibilities by ourselves”, “go straight to the modern technology” (digital technology).

 

After 5 years (1987-1992) of renovation of thoughts both in theory and economy, both in organization and business, the post and telecommunication sector had started launching the “Acceleration” strategy for 1993-2000 periods. The result is that the telecommunication network had been completely digitalized, automated; the market had been fast developed with many new services and expanded the services to the rural areas (1995 the telephone penetration of Vietnam was 1 line/ 100 people, shortening of 5 years in comparison with the approved plan’s target; 2000 reached the penetration of 5 lines /100 people). The business activities became effective; the debt was settled on time; the contribution to the State’s coffers was increased; the industrial potentials satisfied the requirements of fast development; many new companies were setup. The post and telecommunication sector had been trained for competition and preparing to open the door and integrate with the world economy.

 

In the 2001-2010 period, a new strategy “integration and development” for the sector is identified.  Its purpose is to mobilize all internal forces, create deeper and more comprehensively a competitive environment in the country for renovating technology, rising up the capacity of network, diversifying service types, promoting applications and developments of IT, decreasing prices and integrating actively into the world economy. A milestone should be memorized: April 29th 2003, the telecommunication market monopoly has been abolished and become a competitive market on all kinds of service. Vietnam has created a an dynamic telecommunication market with the high growth rate (growth rate reached above 20% per year) and the sharply decreased prices (by the end of 2005, according to the World Bank’s estimation, the telecom tariffs of Vietnam has been reduced to the equivalent level of telecom tariffs of the region). Up to now, the teledensity throughout the country has reached above 25%, Internet users above 15% (overcome targets for 2010).

 

Telecommunication and Internet has obtained the high growth rate, for last 5 years, Vietnam has in many years, taken always a position among the leading group of country in the world. At the end of 2005, 100% of communes of the whole country have reached by telecommunication network. Vietnam is considered one of very few developing countries that has implemented the Telecom universal service obligation and narrowed the digital divide between the urban and rural areas. At present, 100% of universities, colleges, majority of high schools and some secondary schools have internet connection.

 

According to the forecast, by year 2010, the total revenue from telecommunication services would reach 55,000 billion VND; the teledensity of 40-42 mainlines per 100 people; the internet density of 8-12 internet subscribers (among them 30% of broadband subscribers). Vietnam makes efforts to target 40% population using internet, 100% communes attaining public telephone access, 70% communes having public internet access, 100% districts and many communes are provided by broadband services. All ministries, administrative agencies of State, authorities in provinces and districts will get internet broadband connections. 100% research institutes, universities, colleges, professional secondary schools and secondary school have high speed internet connections, above 90% secondary schools and hospitals.

 

In this stage, the strategy of the post and telecom sector has expanded their scope to ICT fields. ICT plays both a spearhead role and a driving for socio-economic development role.

Vietnam ICT is developing more broadly. There are many IT applications in the fields such as bank, statistics, research, education, training, post, telecommunication, oil exploration, construction, aviation etc. About 50% enterprises have utilized IT in business, production management and service. Above 30% enterprises have got Internet connection, 10% enterprises have their website for business, marketing in the local and international market.

 

IT applications has been implemented both in the deep and broad scale. The electronic information are developing and offering their impacts on socials. There are above 50% of ministries, government agencies and above 80% of provinces, cities having websites. Electronics newspapers, web pages together with IPTV services has considerably contributed to the communication tasks, especially for the external information providing.

 

The ICT industry of Vietnam (consists of hardware industry, industry of telecom device manufacture, electronic industry, software industry and content industry) is developing with the average growth rate of 25% per year. Total value of Vietnam ICT industry by 2005 is about 2.5 billions USD.

 

According to the forecast of Ministry of Post and Telematics, the Vietnam ICT industry would be developed and become a spearhead industry sector with total turnover in 2010 targeting to 6-7 billions USD. In the field of software outsourcing, Vietnam would be positioned into a top-ten group in the world market. Software industry with the growth rate of 35% per year would attain the total value of 1 billion USD in 2010, among them 40% for export. The hardware industry with the growth rate of 20% per year would get the total value of 2-3 billions USD in 2010. The structure of electronic products would be changed in the direction that increases the proportion of specialised products to 50% of total value of the electronic industry.

 

The supporting industry and chip manufacture industry would be developed step by step so that Vietnam could accept, master the technology, manufacture products integrated with high value and Vietnam trade marks.

 

At present, Ministry of Post & Telematics is preparing a strategy for the 2011-2020 periods. With the national goal that Vietnam would in general become an industrial country by 2020, ICT sector has to reach the level of developed countries. The contribution of ICT is about 9-10% GDP. The scope under adjustment of the strategy for 2011-2020 will be extended to building the platform for an information society and a knowledge economy.

 

Along with the development of ICT, knowledge and information has made economic activities to surpass the domestic bound and become global activities. The ongoing information technology revolution in line with globalization are making deep impact on all aspects of economy, culture and society, changing the human society from industrial society into information one, from industrial economy into knowledge one, in which competitive ability depending on creativeness, ability to collect, store, process and exchange information. Humankind is on the way to step into new era. The era of information society and knowledge economy and its formation base will be based on the development and large scale applications of ICT.

 

In order to develop the knowledge economy, ICT is one of the most crucial motivation for development and a key factor affecting social economic development, national security, especially in current globalization time. ICT, due to be largely applied in all fields, will speed up the economic growth, shift  economic structure, change structure of society, people’s styles of life, study and work. ICT contributes creating new jobs and careers, significantly changing the current industries, improving competitiveness of traditional industries. In many countries, ICT industry has become a leading sector with extremely high growth rate and job creating. The application of ICT for state governance activities will support effectively the process of making decision rapidly, timely and exactly.

 

From actual practice and development requirements of ICT in Vietnam, it is hoped that scientists pay attention on research to clarify development tendencies of the following technologies:

 

1. Convergence of technologies

Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially Internet is narrowing the world down smaller and smaller. Technology convergence of Telecommunications - Informatics - Communications is taking place all over the world and leading to forming of many sorts of new services, creating new abilities, and new approaches to the social economic development.

 

Thanks to new solutions, converging broadband network, and the development of sensor network, people are able to access internet ubiquitously so as to use any service.

 

The definition “ubiquitous” has been just used for two to three years. Mobile phone and internet have integrated into every aspect of life. The next communication, “always on” communication, new ubiquitous technologies (such as RFID) is expected to bring to a new world of connected equipments (fridge, TV, Automobile, garages, etc), which enable to provide information timely and accurately to any location of user. Especially, the convergence of future’s broadband communication networks with current mobile information services can create major facilities in providing new communication and observation solutions for human being.

 

Ubiquitous communication will surely put great impact to ICT development. This tendency is also coping with a number of new problems of regulations, policies, especially user protection - related issues and social inclusion.

 

The fixed network will be conversed from current TDM network to entire IP network, based on NGN standards for convergence and multimedia communications. 10 to 15 years would be taken for the conversion, depending on investment level of each enterprise and market development for new services. Transmission technology will base essentially on optical fiber transmission technology. High speed fiber optical information with channel multiplexing technology divided by Wavelength Division (WDM), Dense Wavelength Division (DWDM) will be widely applied on long-distance transmission lines. Internet technology will be conversed from IPv4 to IPv6.

 

With IP technology, optical fiber and NGN network, the dream of watching TV on Internet is becoming realistic. Broadband Internet will not only enable us to watch high quality TV programs but also change the traditional way of watching TV. IPTV will become a new basis, by which any of us can watch any favorite TV program in the most convenient time and must not depend on broadcasting time of television stations anymore. Likewise, watching TV on mobile cells is also a new solution to those who keep frequent travelling.

 

By 2015, tele-everything from online presence to e-medical examination and e-learning will be realistic thanks to the advanced communication environment with the speed up to 100 terabit/second, reliability approximately to 100 percent and security to 99 percent.

 

2. Explosion of wireless solutions and services

Within next 10-15 years, information infrastructure will change dramatically due to the explosion of wireless information solutions and services. The numbers of wireless devices including laptops, PDAs, mobile cells (in the year of 2005, there are 2 billion mobile subscribers all over the world), video players, music players… will exceed the number of PCs connected on the fixed network by 2010. A mass of mobile computation devices and wireless sensors will connect moving people with physical environment around. The effect of wireless information solutions and services is considered to be greatly huge as the result of the combination between highly computing capability of wireless devices, and search engines and connected databases.

 

The 3rd generation mobile information (3G) will be developed on the two major wireless interface standards, i.e., W-CDMA and CDMA 2000. Such new wireless broadband technologies as WLAN, Bluetooth, Home –RF, Wifi, WiMAX will still be applicable and compete the 3G technology in several market segments. With the new wireless technologies, the access speed can be up to few hundred Mbit/s and widely implemented in several countries by 2015.

 

3. Information technology developed according to Moore’s law, Metcalf’s law (connectivity) and Reed’s law (information access and convergence)

 

Nano technology and quantum computation would create a sudden mutation. By 2020, computers will be able to reach processing speed at about 20-30 tri billion operations per second and by 2030 personal computers will be able to operate as equivalent as all brains of the whole people living in the city.

 

Storage technology will develop toward 3 directions: storage memory ROM, Read/Write and storage infrastructure. Within the next 10 years, ROM 100GB will possibly be traded at low price. At that time, we can buy a storage memory with the size of a credit card, which is able to contain 2000 films and the cost as watching a movie at current time. The memory Read/Write will increase storage capacity up to 100GB in the next 10 years. By that time, content providers can download 2GB data online within 3 hours. Storage infrastructure is changing the structure of information management and causing great impact to telecommunications. Large storage capacity enables us to download lots of information. Anyone in access to a website, at the same time he/she can use another application to download all of websites which link to the former website.

 

E-book would become a familiar device which will enable to provide multi services. Millions of connecting low price sensors will appear in the market, allowing people to find out lots of valuable parameters.  In the next 15 years, the amount of information created by human will increase continuously with the average speed to be doubled after every three years.

 

The swift development of Science and technology in the ICT sector will also cause many challenges in regards to human resource and internal capability, which are required to perform successfully the National Development Strategy of Vietnam ICT to 2010 and National Strategy for period of 2011-2020 happening coincidentally with globalization and international economic integration. I would like to request our scientists for more attention to doing research on the development tendencies of advanced technologies in the field of ICT, making remarkable contributions to the development of ICT Vietnam in compliance with the world’s development trend in the future.

 

In order to realize the significant objectives of ICT sector, Ministry of Post & Telematics believes that along with 50-year experience, and top ranking professors, associate professors, doctors and lecturers of Vietnam, Hanoi University of Technology will be always the principal training institute, successfully providing human resource of high quality for the development of ICT Vietnam and contributing to the national industrialization and modernization cause of the country./.