Vietnamese regulator MIC this week ordered two big telecommunication companies to maintain their infrastructure rental prices amid monopoly claims.
Recently, Hanoi Telecom sent a petition to MIC to complain about the rental prices charged by state-owned operators VNPT and Viettel.
VNPT and Viettel were accused of increasing their infrastructure prices to much higher than the previous rates.
VietNamNet quotes Hanoi Telecom’s representative said that the new price set by VNPT in March was 276% higher than the old one. “After negotiation, they reduced the price but it was still expensive, around 2.19 times higher”, the representative of Hanoi Telecom is quoted as saying. In April, Viettel also told Hanoi Telecom that they would increase the rental price 207%.
Previously, Hanoi Telecom rented communication facilities from EVN Telecom, who had more than 40.000 km of cables nationwide. After merging with Viettel, VNPT and Viettel became two biggest players in providing communication channels with huge market shares.
Hanoi Telecom claimed that by increasing the rental prices almost the same time, VNPT and Viettel showed that they were bullying small companies and it was a sign of monopoly.
VietNamNet reports that other small communication companies also received increasing rental price announcement from VNPT and Viettel.
VNPT said their new rental price was still lower than the registered rate with MIC. Meanwhile, Viettel explained that the rental rate they had been offering to Hanoi Telecom was too low and unsustainable.
While waiting for the rental price inspection, MIC deputy minister Le Nam Thang ordered VNPT and Viettel to offer small telecom companies the old rates.