VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Information and Communications signed its decision to revoke a telecom licence for the Viet Nam Multimedia Corporation (VTC) on Tuesday.

The move was made following a proposal from the ministry's Telecommunications Department blaming the VTC for failing to carry out its licensed project on time.

Since receiving its licence, No 856/GP-BTTTT, on June 14, 2010, VTC has not implemented its land international mobile telecommunication (IMT-2000) or provided land mobile phone service, Internet or value added services, such as GPRS or 3G networks, text messaging and ring tunes.

In July 2012, the Telecommunications Department asked the VTC to report its implementation. In December 2012, the firm said that they had been working with telecom infrastructure owners such as Viettel, VinaPhone, MobiFone, EVN Telecom and international partners, including Sweden's Ericsson, Finland's Nokia and China's Huawei.

According to the corporation, merger between Viettel and EVN Telecom in June 2011 stalled its co-operation contract with EVN Telecom. VTC discussed with Viettel how to maintain the telecom contract signed with EVN Telecom, but the changes EVN Telecom made to its network business model caused negotiation difficulties.

Another reason was that VTC carried out its restructuring plan in 2012 and its undecided business direction and other changes delayed its implementation.

In May this year, VTC asked the Ministry to let them keep their licence in order to negotiate with mobile network providers, as well as to test a model using WiFi and 3G networks.

At the end of July, the enterprise sent the Ministry a co-operative agreement with Global Telecommunications Corporation (GTEL).

However, the Telecommunication Department said that the contract was not feasible because GTEL did not have a licence to provide land mobile international telecommunication (IMT-2000).

They added that GTEL network could not meet VTC's demands due to its borrowing from VinaPhone's network infrastructure.

According to the Telecommunication Law, licences granted to enterprises will be revoked if they do not put them into practice after two years.

Source: VNS