Vietnam will turn off 2G technology on land from September 16 so telecommunication service providers are being urged to take drastic measures to support their subscribers to switch to mobile phones with higher technology to ensure their interests.

About one million mobile phone numbers that were two-way locked from April 15 have yet to verify their information and face being withdrawn on May 15.

Mobile service providers will block incoming calls for about 1.8 million subscribers with personal information failing to match the national population database beginning on April 1, the Ministry of Information and Communications’ Department of Telecommunications has announced.

Mytel, Viettel’s mobile company in Myanmar, has signed up more than two million subscribers in just one month since officially starting operations.

Nearly 60 million subscribers will have to change their 11-digit phone numbers to 10 digits from September 15, 2018 to June 30, 2019, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The revenue of Vietnamese network operators has suffered an uncharacteristic low in the first quarter of this year due to new legislation reducing top-up promotions for pre-paid subscribers.

Thee major telecom network providers - Viettel, VinaPhone and MobiFone - started testing mobile number portability (MNP) on September 21, which allows subscribers to keep existing mobile number when switching networks.

Viettel Global, a subsidiary of the military-run telecommunication group Viettel, aims to develop one or two new markets and attract 8.35 million new customers in 2016.

People queued up for lucky mobile-phone SIM cards from local telecoms company Vinaphone in the north and the south of Vietnam on March 7.

Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) began commercial testing of its 4G, or fourth generation mobile telecom technology, services in HCM City and Phu Quoc Island, in early 2016.

The Prime Minister has recently approved a programme to develop broadband telecommunications infrastructure by 2020.

Vietnamese telecom corporations saw impressive business results in the past year, according to figures from the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Three major mobile service providers will run technical tests in December, six months later than planned, for operating switching networks without consumers needing to change phone numbers.