Hanoi needs more BTS sharing hinh anh 1The base transceiver station (BTS) in Sam Son commune, Thanh Hoa province (Source: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Telecom companies should further jointly develop and share the use of the completed telecommunications infrastructure such as base transceiver stations (BTS) in Hanoi area.

Nguyen Xuan Quang, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Information and Communications, said that currently the sharing of BTS remains low, accounting for just 19 percent. Therefore, Hanoi should look for solutions to overcome this existing problem.

Quang made the comment during a recent meeting to review the Law on Telecommunications and Law on Radio Frequencies.

He said that the city still faces barriers in encouraging telecom firms to share their network infrastructure. Although the city’s Department of Information and Communications has held numerous conferences to help telecom companies reach agreement on common use of network infrastructure, a consensus has yet to be reached.

Quang attributed the negligible sharing of network infrastructure to the lack of sufficient and strict regulations that could compel them to do so.

In addition, there is no requirement for a common urban infrastructure network in the city’s development. Some were using optical fibre transmission lines, while others were still using copper cables.

To encourage telecom firms to share the network infrastructure, the city administration needs to change the policy on the schedule to retrieve capital investment. It could be extended to between 30 years and 50 years, instead of the current 10 years to 15 years.

This move will help minimise the cost of hiring infrastructure and thus create favourable conditions for telecom businesses to join in.

Some industry insiders also proposed that the Ministry of Information and Communications needs to work with the Ministry of Construction to soon issue a joint circular that will specifically stipulate the issuance of construction certificates to telecom network projects.

On the other hand, the ministry also needs to study and add more standards on the construction of telecom equipment to be in sync with reality.

Quang said that his department will continue to assist the city administration in offering incentives for telecom businesses to invest and build a telecom infrastructure network.

In 2014, the city was home to more than 5,700 BTS of all telecoms providers.-VNA
VNA