The Hanoitimes - Mobile phone promotions are undercutting competition and leading to inactive phone numbers and a waste of digital resources, Government sources say.
The problem has led to the formation of a draft management plan by the Ministry of Information and Communications to control mobile phone promotions and reduce the “chaos” in the market.
The draft plan puts a limit of 90 days a year on which mobile phone promotions can be run and a limit of 45 days on each promotion.
In also mandates that mobile networks must maintain the quality of their services during promotions and the information given to subscribers must comply with regulations.
Under the draft plan, minimum charges set by the Government may not be reduced and any promotion reduction may not exceed 50 percent of the service’s total value.
The ministry has called for comment on the draft management plan which is expected to become the final plan by the end of the month.
Ministry telecom department head Pham Hong Hai said close management of mobile promotions aimed to create healthy completion.
While promotion programmes attracted users, Hai said, they were tending to be used to undercut competitors and had led to and crease in the number of inactive subscriptions, resulting in a waste of digital resources.
Changes had already been made to the promotions regulations. At the end of last year, mobile operators were limited to 50 percent promotions for pre-paid cards, instead of 100 percent or more before.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade said the country’s telecommunication market was in chaos because of promotion “races” to attract subscribers to domestic networks.
