Ha Noi (VNA) – HT Mobile said it has received a license from the Ha Noi People’s Committee to change from existing CDMA (Code Multiple Division Access) to GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) technology.
The fledgling mobile carrier, a joint venture between Ha Noi Telecom and Hutschison Telecommunication, said it will pump an additional of 150 million USD to its initial investment of 650 million USD in 2008 for the network change.
“The fast changing global mobile industry is negatively effecting our operation in Viet Nam and therefore the change will help us to better serve our customers,” said Trinh Ngoc Lang, a member of HT Mobile’s management board.
“The change is inevitable because we cannot resist further losses.”
The Ha Noi-based company, which debuted in January last year, currently has only 200,000 subscribers, against its initial target of one million users after one year of operations.
HT Mobile on January 9 asked the Ministry of Information and Communications for a license to change from the CDMA to GSM network. Twenty days later, the government agreed in principle to the change.
Viet Nam has six mobile carriers at present. S-Fone, HT Mobile and EVNTelecom utilise CDMA technology, while Viettel, Vinaphone and Mobifone use GSM. There are 2.5 billion GSM subscribers against 500,000 million CDMA subscribers worldwide.-Enditem
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