Ciena powering rise of 5G in Vietnam

Duong Xuan Truong, general director of Ciena in Vietnam

What solutions does Ciena offer to facilitate the operations of its partners in Vietnam?

Ciena solves the problem of both internet bandwidth capacity and transmission delay. Moreover, when demands are changing continually, Ciena helps customers adapt to real-time requirements by using our Adaptive Network. It is what sets Ciena apart from other companies.

Another demand from telecom operators and the government is developing automation to cut down costs. Ciena's customers successfully applied our services and recorded good feedback. Network speed doubles and triples, but the number of maintenance employees remains unchanged, reducing the cost of management and operation.

How far has Ciena scaled up your operations in Vietnam?

Ciena is a networking system, services, and software company. We are one of the leading partners in the world. We have more than 7,000 employees working in 35 countries, over 1,800 customers in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 85 per cent of whom are the most significant service suppliers.

In Vietnam, we rank as the second-largest supplier for telecom operators. Over the last two years, we have built up the network infrastructure for FPT Telecom to ensure the adaption to the changing market flexibly.

At present, we provide Metro Network to FPT Hanoi and FPT Saigon. We analyse data from the network each hour and minute to ensure stable connections and minimal lag. The optimal network solution is intelligent and flexible to ensure customers' relentless demand for more excellent connectivity and bandwidth-consuming services.

FPT is adopting our latest WaveLogic technology that supports greater scale, programmability, and intelligence from the network edge to core. Customers will see drastic changes in service quality in the coming time when Ciena and FPT officially introduce the technology.

How would you describe Vietnam's 5G development roadmap and potential?

Our customers are 85 per cent of the world's leading corporations. Ciena provides communication networks, IP systems, and automation software to optimise the results for our clients. We see that the 5G rollout poses challenges for telecom operators globally and in Vietnam, given that the technology is entirely new compared with 3G and 4G services. In the world, telecom operators implement pilot projects in specific areas and are formulating business plans with input about the demand before launching 5G on a large scale.

I think that Vietnamese telecom operators should build comprehensive business plans for the 5G rollout. Specifically, the plan should be based on research and forecasted user demand so that telecom operators can select the locations and the procedures to implement the service efficiently.

For example, they can survey with supermarket operators like Vinmart to collect feedback from clients about their wish to use 5G services and their possible investment in the technology to serve customers better. In Vietnam, I can see that the government and telecom operators have made concrete steps to launch 5G successfully in line with international standards.

Could you share what Ciena is doing to speed up the development?

Ciena works with Vietnamese telecom companies in the e-government space. To build a smart government, Vietnam needs to apply telecommunications infrastructure systems like 5G. This can help ease administrative procedures and reduce the time for both investors and residents as more work can be done online. As a result, the transparency of the administrative works will increase, which will, in turn, help improve the efficiency of the government and companies.

In the past two years, Ciena has teamed up with Vietnamese telecom giants to prepare the necessary steps to roll out 5G services. It took us 2-3 years of preparation to launch 5G this year. At present, telecom operators are actively switching their infrastructure to support the rollout of 5G services. Ciena is committed to working closely with them to provide information and advice during the implementation process.

For example, we work with them to select the best model for the rollout. We will also help telecom operators to address the challenges related to network design, transmission, and standards.

With the support of 5G, new versions of applications in areas like intelligent government, retail systems, factories, self-driving cars, or games can be developed.

How would you evaluate the pace of development in internet infrastructure in Vietnam? What can Ciena offer to improve the internet user experience in Vietnam?

Vietnam has a stable quality of bandwidth and transmission delay, and both the bandwidth and number of internet users have boomed.

Technology-wise, Vietnam stands near the top of both the region and the world. In particular, Ciena supports the latest technology with speed at 200-400Gbps/wavelength, equivalent to the global speed. In the near future, we will apply an 800Gbps/wavelength for the metro network.

The Ministry of Information and Communications and telecom operators are speeding up technology applications, boosting the economy and user experience. Vietnam is changing its ranking in the world, and its internet is becoming faster.

We have found the situation to be very promising over the past few years. In recent years, the speed of development in Vietnam is almost equivalent to the ASEAN region in terms of 5G IP, optical transmission speed, software, and AI applications.

At present, Ciena is providing the latest solutions and systems to Vietnamese telecom operators at the most competitive prices. As a result, these telecom operators can deliver services to users at a reasonable rate.

Besides, we are also striving to improve user experience by offering faster connections and less lag. We help clients build adaptive networks in response to the constantly changing demands of their users. Finally, we analyse all of the user experience to optimise the network for higher quality.

At present, there is the growing popularity of online services such as video streaming, gaming, and e-commerce. This creates more opportunities for telecom operators to earn more revenue if they can attract users with the optimal user experience. There are also other opportunities in smart manufacturing, e-government, and retail.