Vietnam has this week announced that it aims to deploy two undersea internet cables by the end of next year. It has also said that 5G services will be deployed across the country by that time.
The plans, announced on Wednesday are said to be part of a digital infrastructure development strategy signed by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh on Wednesday.
Vietnam has been in the news a great deal lately, with many headlines underlining its appeal as an investment destination. A few examples from these pages include Meta’s plans to produce its next-generation virtual and augmented reality headsets in Vietnam, collaboration between Ericsson and local operator MobiFone on a 5G Innovation Hub and the news that Foxconn’s Singaporean unit has received a licence to invest US$551 million into two projects to produce smart entertainment products and smart system equipment in Vietnam.
However, there is a problem with international connectivity that needs to be addressed. Indeed, as Reuters points out, over recent years there have been a number of reported outages of Vietnam’s five major existing cables, which are ageing, though, as we reported earlier this year, the country has promised massive expansion of its undersea network by 2030.
How the contractors for the 2025 undersea internet cables will be chosen isn’t clear. However, the US has reportedly been urging Vietnam to avoid Chinese contractors to build its new undersea cables due to security concerns.
2030 is also the date by which this week’s announcement suggests all of the country's population will have access to fibre-optic cable internet service with speed of at least 1Gbps along with 5G services, albeit 5G hasn’t reached the market yet despite years of testing. The country also expects to be ready to test 6G mobile services by late 2025.
Reuters adds that the strategy announcement also includes ambitions to establish AI data centres and hyperscale data centres by 2030.
