[Vietnam]: MNOs Push Regulator for OTT Surcharge

MIC

VietNamNet reports that "The Prime Minister has assigned MIC to set up the policies to put OTT services under the control instead of letting OTT stay “outside of the law" . Prior to that, Pham Hong Hai, Head of the MIC’s Telecom Agency, once said the OTT services which have big influences to the society’s life, need to be put under control. Meanwhile, a source said MIC is considering collecting fees from the service users. The same policy is being applied in South Korea" [see "Korea's Net No-Neutrality: MNOs may Surcharge for OTT VoIP and Messaging" - here]

Kakao Talk

"Mobile network operators, who complained that the existence of OTT apps has made them lose hundreds of billions of dong in revenue every month  .. it is expected that Vietnam would have some 20 million OTT app users by the end of the year. 

• Kakao Talk hopes to obtain 7 million users; Viber has set up the goal of attracting 10 million users in Vietnam, while Zalo said it has got 4 million users
   
• Deputy General Director of the military telecom group Viettel Nguyen Manh Hung said if the 40 million mobile subscribers of Viettel use 3G and OTT, the turnover of the network would drop by 50 percent. Voice and message services now bring 80 percent of the total turnover of mobile networks
   
• A representative of MobiFone, one of the three biggest mobile networks in Vietnam estimated that there are 280,000 calls on Viber in Vietnam and 8.7 million SMS per day"

See "Vietnam considers collecting fees from OTT apps users" - here.