Telecommunications wholesaling in Vietnam from August 23, 2024

Telecommunications wholesaling in Vietnam from August 23, 2024 (Image from the Internet)

On July 10, 2024, the Minister of Information and Communications (Hanoi, Vietnam) issued Circular 08/2024/TT-BTTTT detailing Telecommunications wholesaling.

Telecommunications wholesaling in Vietnam from August 23, 2024

Telecommunications wholesaling from August 23, 2024 includes:

(1) Ensuring the provision of services at fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory prices and conditions as follows:

- Fair pricing, terms, and conditions of service when providing wholesale services.

- No discrimination among independent accounting units within the enterprise, the enterprise's subsidiaries, the enterprise's business partners, and other wholesale purchasing enterprises.

- The sale price, conditions, and service terms must be reasonably constructed based on factors: Service provision costs; Service quantity, quality, scope, method, duration, and location; Payment terms, service package usage duration as per contractual terms; Exclusivity, technology, and customer segment factors.

(2) Transparency of information regarding prices, telecom standards, technical regulations, network quality, and telecommunications services as follows:

- Implementing procedures for price declaration and listing of service provision prices in accordance with legal regulations on price.

- Transparency of information on telecommunications standards, technical regulations, network quality, telecommunications services, as well as specific service provision and usage terms and conditions.

- Transparency of the sample service provision agreement for participating in wholesale telecommunications activities (hereinafter referred to as the wholesale service provision agreement) in accordance with Articles 5 and 6 of Circular 08/2024/TT-BTTTT.

Regulations on the content of agreements on provision of telecommunications wholesaling in Vietnam

The agreements on provision of telecommunications wholesaling in Vietnam must ensure the following conditions:

- Be established in writing, covering all content on price, service quality standards, and other service provision terms and conditions that the wholesale enterprise is ready to provide to any wholesale purchasing enterprise that wishes to agree.

- Be written clearly, consistently, and specifically according to the corresponding service name to ensure the wholesale purchasing enterprise only purchases wholesale services within the list of telecommunications services markets managed by the State that they wish to buy.

Among them, the wholesale service provision agreements must include at least the following contents:

- Requirements and principles of service provision;

- Procedures and processes of service provision;

- Description of services to be provided, including technical characteristics (including network configuration information necessary for the effective use of network access);

- Service quality standards, including at least the service quality indicators that have been publicly announced;

- Operational and technical requirements that the wholesale purchasing enterprise must comply with to avoid causing harm to the wholesale enterprise’s network;

- Content on telecommunications interconnection as regulated by the Ministry of Information and Communications (in case of network leasing);

- Terms on pricing and procedures for reconciliation and payment of service usage fees;

- Forms of payment for service usage fees;

- Procedures for implementing service changes (addition, reduction);

- Solutions to ensure infrastructure safety and information security;

- Regulations on information confidentiality and data privacy used during the provisioning and usage of services;

- Other rights and obligations of the wholesale purchasing/selling enterprise (if any);

- Rights to terminate the agreement, compensation for damages in case one of the two enterprises fails to fulfill the commitments in the agreement;

- Dispute resolution, compensation, complaints;

- Contact information.

Note: Wholesale enterprises in telecommunications can send written documents to the Ministry of Information and Communications (Vietnam Telecommunications Authority) in case specific guidance on the content of the wholesale service provision agreement is needed.

(Article 6 Circular 08/2024/TT-BTTTT)

More details can be found in Circular 08/2024/TT-BTTTT, which comes into effect in Vietnam from August 23, 2024.

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