The shutdown of 2G waves has been planned and the roadmap is expected to officially disconnect all devices operating on this platform in Vietnam by September 2024. This policy has received the approval of network operators as well as many technology experts, including those who believe that it should be turned off "as soon as possible" to reserve valuable resources for 4G and 5G networks.
Speaking at the event "Switching off 2G to bring people to the digital environment", Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hung, Director of TrueIDC Vietnam, and an experienced telecommunications expert, said that the Government and network operators should be determined to soon realize the plan. According to him, many countries in the world have already switched off 2G, although some in Europe are still "holding on" and maintaining this network technology.
Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hung said that Vietnam should turn off 2G waves "as soon as possible".
"In those countries, they use switchboards and emergency numbers that operate based on 2G waves, or supermarkets and restaurants use 2G to automatically measure electricity and water remotely, so they cannot be turned off immediately. But Vietnam does not have these services, so turning off 2G waves as soon as possible to reserve bandwidth for new technologies. This is the 'golden bandwidth'. In foreign countries, they consider this a very valuable resource," Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hung shared.
Currently, most 2G uses the 900 MHz band. Compared to the 1,800 MHz band of 4G in use, it has the advantage of wider coverage, reducing about half the number of base stations needed to achieve equivalent coverage, thereby saving businesses a lot of costs while improving network quality.
Sharing the same view, Huawei wireless network technology expert Nguyen Duy Lam said that turning off old technologies such as 2G and 3G is a common trend in the world. He cited a GSMA report showing that by mid-2023, 149 network operators in the world have been implementing plans to turn off old waves. Of which, the majority of advanced countries choose to turn off 2G with a rate of 63% in Europe, more than 20% in Asia. Many countries have turned off 2G for a long time, such as Japan (around 2010 - 2012, the earliest because this country uses CDMA), the US and Singapore (2017), Australia (2018) ...
According to former Director of the Radio Frequency Department (Ministry of Information and Communications) Doan Quang Hoan, Vietnam's policy of shutting down 2G waves follows the general trend of the world. "A technology that was formed and provided since the early 1990s and has had 4 successive mobile generations, shutting down is nothing new," he emphasized.
The former head of the Department said that from 2012 to 2013, the Department had studied and researched the roadmap for shutting down 2G waves in Japan and Europe and started to form an idea about how the roadmap would take place in Vietnam. Mr. Doan Quang Hoan assessed that shutting down 2G waves would bring benefits to Vietnam such as the whole society giving up low-quality services to switch to new, higher-quality technologies, helping to bring people to the digital environment. As for businesses, they will reduce operating and maintenance costs and move closer to the goal of green development.
According to the roadmap set out by September 2024 in Vietnam, there will be no more 2G Only subscribers on the mobile network, but this technology will still be maintained until September 2026 to serve the group of users who are using phones that support 3G and 4G network connection but do not yet integrate VoLTE technology.
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