On the morning of November 24, the National Assembly voted to pass the Law on Telecommunications (amended) with 473/468 votes in favor (equivalent to 94.74% of the delegates participating in the vote).
Previously, in a summary report explaining, accepting and revising the draft Law, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment Le Quang Huy said that there were opinions requesting clarification on whether basic telecommunications services on the Internet are a type of telecommunications service or not.
Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment Le Quang Huy presented a summary report explaining the reception of the draft Law on Telecommunications (amended).
Accordingly, basic telecommunications services on the Internet provide features equivalent to basic telecommunications services (messages, voice, video conferencing), providing the main feature of sending, transmitting, and receiving information between two or a group of people using telecommunications services on the Internet.
Similar services should be regulated by the same Law, ensuring equality between enterprises providing basic telecommunications services on the Internet and enterprises providing traditional telecommunications services.
In the world, many countries have regulated this service as a telecommunications service and are managed under the telecommunications law. Therefore, basic telecommunications service on the Internet is a type of telecommunications service, regulated in the Telecommunications Law.
However, this service is characterized by the fact that the service provider does not own the network infrastructure and is not allocated telecommunications resources, so the draft Law has been revised in the direction of regulating it in a "light management" manner, only having to comply with some regulations on obligations. The Standing Committee of the National Assembly finds that the name "basic telecommunications service on the Internet" has shown the characteristics of this service, so it is proposed to keep the name as in the draft Law.
Regarding the Public Telecommunication Service Fund, there are opinions suggesting not to stipulate subjects exempted from or having their contributions reduced to the Vietnam Public Telecommunication Service Fund to ensure fairness and transparency among telecommunication enterprises.
The National Assembly Standing Committee believes that exempting and reducing financial contributions of enterprises to the Vietnam Public Telecommunications Service Fund will contribute to creating conditions for enterprises to focus resources to "encourage private enterprises with sufficient capacity to participate in building telecommunications infrastructure and other infrastructure for national digital transformation" according to the Party's policy.
In addition, international experience shows that many countries have regulations exempting telecommunications enterprises from contributing to the universal public telecommunications service fund in some cases. Therefore, the National Assembly Standing Committee proposes to keep the regulations on the management of public telecommunications activities as in the draft Law; at the same time, assign the Government to specify the exemption and reduction of contributions to the Fund to suit the actual situation.
Regarding telecommunications resources, there are opinions suggesting that telecommunications service subscriber numbers should also be divided into groups to properly assess their value, minimize cases of deposit abandonment during auctions, and assign the Ministry of Information and Communications to provide detailed regulations; propose to explain measures to control the deposit abandonment to participate in auctions of telecommunications numbers.
The Standing Committee of the National Assembly finds that it is difficult to evaluate and classify subscriber numbers with special structures based on their value because it depends on many factors such as the user's perception, region, and area. Determining a starting price for the subscriber number to be auctioned as well as choosing the form of online auction and bidding up according to the starting price and price step is in accordance with the provisions of the current Law on Property Auction (similar to the pilot implementation of car license plate auctions) will create opportunities for many participants, creating conditions to accurately determine the value of the subscriber number to be auctioned according to the market mechanism.
In addition, the draft Law on Telecommunications (amended) stipulates an appropriate starting price when participating in auctions to limit barriers and create conditions for all organizations and individuals who want to participate in auctions. However, this provision also leads to certain risks such as the situation of giving up deposits. The draft Law assigns the Government to specify in detail the auction of the right to use telecommunications numbers and the Vietnamese national domain name “.vn” to ensure compliance with the law on asset auctions.
The National Assembly Standing Committee requested the Government to study and accept the opinions of the Agency in charge of reviewing the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Property Auction to supplement regulations on penalties for violations of obligations in property auction activities (prescribing provisions on penalties in cases of winning the auction but not purchasing the property).
With this solution, the deposit amount may be low to attract many bidders, but the large fine for violating obligations will help prevent the situation of paying unusually high prices and then losing the deposit, causing market manipulation. The National Assembly Standing Committee proposed to keep the regulations on auctioning telecommunications numbering as in the draft Law.
Voting results to pass the Law on Telecommunications (amended).
There is a proposal to clearly stipulate the auction method according to the ascending price for the auction of the right to use the telecommunications number warehouse and the Vietnamese national domain name “.vn”. The Standing Committee of the National Assembly believes that Article 40 of the Law on Property Auction stipulates two auction methods: the ascending price method and the descending price method.
Types of codes, telecommunication numbers, and Vietnamese national domain names “.vn” are types of assets that the law stipulates must be sold through auction according to the provisions of Clause 1, Article 4 of the Law on Asset Auction and are specifically stipulated in Point a, Clause 2 and Point a, Clause 3, Article 50 of the draft Law. According to the provisions of Article 55 and Clause 2, Article 58 of the Law on Asset Auction, telecommunication number warehouses and Vietnamese national domain names “.vn” are types of assets that must be sold through the method of bidding up.
Based on the study and acceptance of the opinions of National Assembly deputies, the National Assembly Standing Committee directed the revision of Clause 6, Article 50 of the draft Law in the direction of adding regulations on the method and form of auctioning telecommunications numbers and Vietnamese national domain names ".vn" to be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the law on asset auctions to be consistent with Article 58 of the Law on Asset Auctions on the method of bidding up.
Le Hoang (VOV.VN)
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