At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 - the largest B2B event in the global telecommunications and IT industry, Viettel brought products and solutions to solve global technology issues, notably the 5G network. Mr. Henry Calvert - Network Director of the GSM Association, affirmed: "We welcome and thank Viettel for its pioneering and breakthrough step in signing this memorandum of understanding (MOU). We really hope that the two sides will have long-term cooperation, not only with 5G but also 6G, 7G..., with Open Gateway connection. We are committed to not only accompanying Viettel in the region but also on a global scale".

At the ceremony to honor outstanding individuals and groups of the Military Industry and Telecommunications Group (Viettel) in 2023 - Viettel's Stars 2023, Major General Tao Duc Thang - Chairman and General Director of Viettel Group emphasized the journey to conquer 5G: "It is an effort on a challenging path, requiring the aspiration, perseverance and determination of each group and each individual of Viettel. We must do things that have never been done in Vietnam, and few places in the world can do it."

The admiration of partners and recognition of the Group's leaders are reserved for the staff and experts who have conquered 5G technology, making Viettel one of the 6 manufacturers (vendors) in the world capable of manufacturing complete 5G network equipment (broadcast station systems, transmission systems, core network systems...) including both hardware and software.

The Pioneer's Challenge

The conquest of 5G was launched by the Broadband Telecommunications Center - VTBR (under Viettel High Technology Industry Corporation - VHT) in 2016 after mastering the technology and successfully manufacturing 4G network equipment. At that time, 4G technology was at its "mature" stage, many partners were willing to share experiences, standards as well as have a team of proficient experts to support. But 5G is a different story...

“Everything is new even for partners who have cooperated with Viettel before. They are really researching, or demanding huge costs for cooperation to develop new technology,” said Mr. Hoang Dinh Hai Truyen - Director of VTBR Center.

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Broadband Radio Equipment Research Center is one of 10 collectives awarded the title Viettel's Stars 2023

Mr. Truyen said that at that time, 5G was the technology of the future, with only some initial sketches. Unlike old telecommunications networks, 5G is a technological leap forward with the ability to connect with super low latency, ensuring a density of millions of connections per square kilometer, or super high speed 20 times higher than the current 4G network. The 5G network is an important digital platform for each country, creating the basis for important digital services in industrial environments such as automated factories, self-driving traffic or instant video applications for medicine, automatic control, simulation... The technical requirements also far exceed those of 2G, 3G, 4G networks, which only ensure connections for communication. The volume of related processing, integration work... increases hundreds of times.

To take advantage of the pioneering opportunity, Viettel Group always aims to commercialize its products. That is, in addition to meeting the functional requirements of customers, the product must also meet all the technical standards of the markets Viettel is targeting; not only Vietnam but also Europe, America, etc., equivalent to products of major technology companies. In parallel with ensuring technical requirements, Viettel needs to keep the price low, ensuring competitiveness in the market.

The 5G race in the world has caused vendors such as Huawei and Ericsson to invest billions of dollars and thousands of research and development personnel. Viettel does not have that resource, even the number of people participating in research is only about 150 people - much less than the force of 5,000 - 10,000 people in departments with similar functions at vendors, according to Viettel's representative.

Faced with the challenge, Viettel still finds its own advantage - the world's pioneer in manufacturing equipment, which means it has a network to test. On the other hand, the current ORAN standard community is growing strongly, and there are even countries that regulate the rate of application of this open standard in telecommunications, especially in Europe and the US. This is an opportunity for Viettel to participate in this market. Viettel's 5G products are built on the ORAN open standard platform, which can be deployed in part on other network systems around the world.

Desire leads to action

The Director of VTBR Center said that Viettel has no choice but to do more, faster in its own way. Companies around the world only choose one platform to develop, but Viettel chooses all 3 of the world's largest platforms to develop at the same time: Qualcomm, Intel, AMD.

The human resources are few in number but the team is full of enthusiasm. “In the 5G project, what I appreciate most is the people, the brothers in the project. Personally, I always determine that this is the greatest asset of the project”, said Mr. Hoang Dinh Hai Truyen - Director of VTBR Center.

Most of Viettel's engineering team are young, ready to throw themselves into their work, dedicating all their efforts to a meaningful job.

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Viettel High Tech engineers

Viettel representative expressed: “In the 5G race, we have burning motivations to perfect the product. That is the aspiration to master high technology, to do large projects, national significance, so everyone makes efforts. We all determine that each person must try to be better today than yesterday to build the project, to contribute to the organization, to the country, to prove and bring high-tech products to the world level”.

Vietnamese intelligence goes out to sea

According to Viettel representative, currently, Viettel can stand shoulder to shoulder with 5 other developers including: Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung, ZTE, Nokia, becoming a pioneer in the field of providing 5G equipment.

At the Mobile World Congress on February 26, 2024, Viettel signed a memorandum of understanding on the deployment of API (Application Programming Interface) services under the GSMA Open Gateway initiative. This initiative is global in scale, deployed from 2023 with the participation of major mobile network operators in the world. To date, Viettel is the first and only network operator in Vietnam to participate.

Also at MWC 2024, Viettel and Intel signed a cooperation agreement to accelerate research, development and production of advanced technologies to serve digital infrastructure and future digital society.

Mr. Dan Rodriguez - Vice President and General Director of Network Platform Group, Intel Corporation globally said: "Viettel and Intel will develop concepts, conduct practical tests and deploy commercial services for product lines and solutions in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, smart devices, computing platforms and data centers".

Nokia and NVIDIA also highly appreciate Viettel's 5G technology ecosystem with commitments to deeper cooperation.

“The achievements with 5G once again show that each project is a time when Viettel people overcome their own further challenges, to achieve unlimited excellence,” said a Viettel representative.

Ngoc Minh