Minister Nguyen Manh Hung: Shifting telecommunications from connectivity infrastructure to digital capacity infrastructure.

 

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung and Deputy Minister Pham Duc Long take a souvenir photo with leaders of the units through different periods and telecommunications enterprises.

On January 10, 2026, in Hanoi, the Postal and Telecommunications Sector under the Ministry of Science and Technology, comprising 6 units: the Authority of Radio Frequency Management (ARFM), the Central Post Intelligence (CPT), the Vietnam Internet Center (VNNIC), the Authority of Telecommunications (VNTA), the Department of Posts, and the Vietnam Public Utility Telecommunication Service Fund (VTCI), held a conference to implement the 2026 work plan.

Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung and Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Duc Long attended and directed the conference.

The conference was also attended by leaders of the units through various periods, telecommunications enterprises (DNs), and more than 800 officials participating both in person and online.

A breakthrough year for Vietnam's digital infrastructure

Reporting on the outstanding operational results of the Sector, Mr. Le Van Tuan, Director General of the Authority of Radio Frequency Management (ARFM), emphasized legal and institutional work first and foremost. 

In 2025, the Postal and Telecommunications Sector completed a large volume of legal normative documents. The number of completed documents accounted for more than 30% of the total legal normative documents for the entire 2020 - 2025 term. Out of the 3 laws governing the sector, 2 laws were amended during the term, and the Law on Posts will be amended in 2026.

 

Mr. Le Van Tuan, Director General of the Authority of Radio Frequency Management

The year 2025 marked a breakthrough for Vietnam's digital infrastructure in terms of speed, scale, and coverage, reflected through several prominent indicators: Fixed broadband Internet increased by 4.5 times, ranking 11th globally, up 49 places compared to the beginning of the term. Mobile broadband Internet increased by 4.7 times compared to the beginning of the term, 2 times higher than in 2024, ranking 17th globally, up 45 places, reaching a speed of 160 Mbps. 4G infrastructure coverage reached 99.48% of the population; 5G experienced breakthrough growth with coverage expanding from 0.93% in 2023 to 90.2% in 2025, and the number of 5G base stations increasing from 184 to 35,304. The proportion of households using fiber-optic cable reached 87.6% in 2025.

During the 2020 - 2025 period, with a proactive and positive spirit in directing and coordinating coverage for coverage-blind areas, the Ministry of Science and Technology completed signal coverage for 3,238 villages and hamlets. 

The year 2025 also marked a milestone as Vietnam was recognized by Gartner as one of the first 5 countries capable of manufacturing 5G equipment.

Regarding the promotion of digital infrastructure and radio frequency management, in 2025, the Authority of Radio Frequency Management successfully organized 2 additional spectrum auctions, doubling the total amount of spectrum allocated for mobile communications compared to the beginning of the term. Establishing the timeline for shutting down 2G and 3G networks in spectrum planning and organizing the 2G sunset was a major milestone, marking a transition from "voice-centric" infrastructure to data infrastructure. Defining conditions for re-issuing and executing the re-issuance of spectrum, instead of revoking and re-auctioning, maintained stability for the mobile market of 120 million subscribers, especially the 4G network.

 

Overview of the conference

The communication system serving the leadership, guidance, and administration of the Party and State was ensured to be safe, smooth, and reliable under all circumstances. The system accommodated meetings on a scale of 16,000 connection points with approximately 1.5 million Party members, demonstrating a centralized and modern governance capacity. The Specialized Data Transmission Network infrastructure was upgraded and restructured within 30 days, serving the 2-level local government model without interruption.

In the postal sector, the 2020 - 2025 period recorded rapid and stable development, with an average postal revenue growth rate of 18.6%/year and an average postal volume growth rate of 31.5%/year. In 2025, postal service revenue reached 87,000 billion VND, with postal volume reaching 4.2 billion items, satisfying the diverse needs of society.

The Public Utility Telecommunication Service Fund supported approximately 1.9 million digital TV set-top boxes for poor and near-poor households. The Fund coordinated with telecommunications enterprises to construct 1,817 BTS stations to provide terrestrial mobile telecommunications services in extremely difficult areas, and 1,755 fixed terrestrial broadband Internet access points (fiber-optic to the home) in extremely difficult areas.

Regarding IPv6, the deployment rate reached 67.68%, ranking 7th worldwide. The current focus is not only on expanding the adoption rate but also on shifting the network architecture from dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) to IPv6-only networks, preparing a roadmap to phase out IPv4 dependency in line with global trends and requirements for expanding the Internet, IoT, and 5G/6G. The national domain name ".vn" reached a scale of 683,621 domain names, ranking 3rd in ASEAN, with stable growth of 3-6% annually, reflecting high trust in DNS infrastructure and broad market acceptance.

The iSpeed Internet speed measurement system developed by VNNIC currently collects 2.3 million test samples per month, an increase of 230% compared to 2023, with 1.3 million app installations.

The reform of the Telecommunications sector

In light of the achievements of the Postal and Telecommunications Sector in 2025 as well as over the 5-year period, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung recognized and highly appreciated the efforts of the 6 units.

 

Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung

The Minister shared that 2025 was a special year, a turning point for Vietnam, as the country officially established a development goal with a long-term vision and immense challenges. Over the next 20 years, GDP scale will increase approximately 5-fold, bringing Vietnam into the group of developed, high-income countries. This is a monumental goal that very few nations in the world have set with such high ambition within a relatively short period.

Placing this goal in the current context, the Minister frankly acknowledged that the Telecommunications sector has completed its historical mission and is standing at a strategic crossroads. Over past decades, Vietnamese telecommunications accomplished a foundational task: popularizing connectivity across both fixed and mobile networks, bringing the Internet to every citizen and region, and establishing essential infrastructure for the national digital transformation. This is an achievement of historical significance, laying the foundation for the growth of the digital economy and digital society.

However, the Minister pointed out that the traditional growth model of the telecommunications industry has reached its limits. Growth based on subscriber numbers, usage traffic, or average revenue per user (ARPU) leaves little room for further expansion. Moving from 3G to 4G and 5G, if limited merely to upgrading to a higher "G", creates very limited added value. Meanwhile, while data, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy are booming globally, telecommunications revenue grows slowly, even significantly lower than the growth rate of the digital economy.

The Minister highlighted a thought-provoking paradox: telecommunications is the infrastructure of the digital era, yet the telecommunications sector itself is growing 5 to 6 times slower than the digital economy. According to the Minister, the root cause lies in the fact that the industry's development mindset still revolves around providing connectivity, whereas the world has shifted strongly toward providing digital capabilities. These are two completely different concepts. If telecommunications continues to merely sell call minutes or gigabytes of data, the value will steadily decline, competition will become increasingly fierce, profit margins will narrow, and ultimately there will not be enough resources to reinvest in infrastructure.

From that reality, the Minister emphasized that it is time to transition from traditional telecommunications companies (TelCos) to infrastructure companies, specifically digital infrastructure companies (Infrastructure Companies). This is not just a strategic adjustment, but a vital survival transformation. Telecommunications can no longer be viewed merely as connectivity infrastructure, but must become the digital capability infrastructure for the entire economy. In fact, this issue was raised and discussed 6–7 years ago as a transition from "voice" to infrastructure for the digital economy – and the Minister called this the second reform of the telecommunications sector.

This transformation means that telecommunications will not only sell bandwidth, but must provide complete digital capability service packages, including Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data, Cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), and digital platforms. These services should be regarded as a new form of "electricity" – essential input infrastructure for businesses and society in the digital age. Telecommunications must become a full-package digital capability provider rather than just a network operator.

According to the Minister, the historical role of the telecommunications sector in the coming period is to serve as a focal point to connect and integrate these technological elements into complete services provided to society. The sector may not own every technology component, but it is one of the rare entities with sufficient capacity, standing, and infrastructure to "package" and integrate them into comprehensive solutions.

In that context, 5G technology should not be understood simply as faster speeds. The Minister affirmed that if 5G is only used to watch clearer videos or download data faster, 5G will fail economically. 5G only truly demonstrates its value when deeply deployed into production and high-value-added service sectors such as factories, seaports, logistics, healthcare, energy, and smart cities, becoming infrastructure for production, innovation, and high-quality growth.

 

The Telecommunications sector is no longer in its "safe zone"

In this new development phase, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung emphasized that the Vietnamese Telecommunications sector has been kept in a "safe zone" by the State for many years, but that approach is no longer suitable for the country's development requirements amidst increasingly fierce global tech competition and digital transformation. It is time to break free from the old management mindset and shift from merely managing telecommunications infrastructure to governing national strategic infrastructure.

The Minister frankly stated that if telecommunications cannot drive economic development, the foundation of national growth will also be weakened. Telecommunications is no longer a domain to "stagnantly preserve", but must become a creative domain to lead. In this context, innovation is no longer an option, but a mandatory requirement for the entire sector.

This fundamental change, according to the Minister, must begin with state management itself. First is a mindset shift from pure spectrum management to spectrum management for development goals, rather than focusing solely on maximizing bidding revenue. At the same time, state management needs to shift from traditional licensing models to designing "new rules of the game", building regulatory sandboxes to create space for innovation.

The State does not replace businesses, but has the responsibility to pave the institutional way, allowing trials of new business models and new services, while accepting controlled failures. This is a new task, even a new "profession" for state management in telecommunications. Instead of focusing only on familiar administrative tasks such as licensing, handling spam SIMs, managing tariffs, or promotions, the focus needs to shift toward designing new development models, building sandboxes, and accompanying enterprises in testing next-generation digital services.

The Minister affirmed that Vietnam's Telecommunications sector is by no means weak, but faces the risk of "aging" very quickly if it does not decisively innovate. If it continues operating by old inertia, the sector may lose its leadership role in the digital era. However, the Minister expressed full confidence that Vietnamese telecommunications possesses adequate capacity to enter a new growth cycle, a second reform occurring nearly 40 years after the historic first reform.

In a long-term vision, telecommunications over the next 10 years will not merely stop at connecting people, but must connect production, knowledge, and the future. Telecommunications must become the production infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure of the nation, serving as the foundation for innovation, productivity enhancement, and competitive strength for the economy.

To realize that goal, the Minister stressed that state management of telecommunications must change comprehensively, from institutions to management methods, from a control mindset to an enabling mindset. Only by truly acting as a driver of development can state management promote the historic transformation of the Telecommunications sector, turning this field into one of the key pillars of the national development model in the digital era.