National Assembly of Vietnam Committee for Science,
Technology and Environment.
To support its goal of a New Industrialized Economy, Vietnam
is bound to enter the next millennium with IT among its top
priorities. At the same time, concerns have been expressed
regarding the impact on IT on lifestyle and the traditional
culture.
1. Introduction
According to many international forecasts, the first decades
of the 21st century will expose us to great shifts in the
global economy arising from precipitous development of
information technology (IT). For Vietnam to benefit from
these changes, it is recognized that information technology
has to be accorded top priority. Indeed, Vietnam fully
intends to include information technology among the
country's highest priority development objectives.
2. Basic concepts of IT development toward the 21st century
The main over-all target for Vietnam set forth by the
government is for the country to become a New Industrialized
Economy (NIE) by the year 2020. To reach this goal, the
country's information technology will rank among the
principal motive forces. The main resource for IT
development is the human resources. IT-related education and
R & D are important if the young generation is to become an
IT generation well acquainted with software,
telecommunications, networking, etc. Within all sectors of
the national economy, those areas which feature a high
involvement of IT services, resources management,
telecommunications, and computer-assisted manufacturing
(e.g., CAD, CAM) will deserve special attention.
3. Impact of IT on the traditional culture
It has equally been recognized that in addition to the many
highly positive contributions of IT to the economy,
democracy, and quality of life of the population we are also
bound to expect negative impacts of IT development to
manifest themselves on the traditional oriental culture.
Traditional arts are flooded and sometimes swept away by a
powerful wave of Western movies, videotapes, CDs. Folklore
is seemingly dead or dying, theaters are empty of any
audience, etc. All this brings about certain social
stresses: the elder-generation artists, writers, and culture
managers feel a crisis approaching, causing breakdown to
work and life. A negative shift in lifestyle is being
experienced: the money cult reigns, extreme individualism
and egoism are manifest, serious damages occur to community
institutions, the three-generation family (children,
parents, grandparents) is breaking down, and the
inter-generation gap is widening. Antisocial activities are
also taking hold: pornography in cyberspace, the cult of
violence, prostitution and call-girls, antisocial sects,
mafia, intentional misinformation, and violations of the
freedom of individuals.
4. Attempts at prevention and mitigation
There is no doubt that people will always appreciate the
positive contributions of IT to over-all progress. On the
other hand, the negative aspects of IT can possibly be
prevented or mitigated by people themselves, with government
support. The corrective and/or supportive measures which can
be attempted include :
Strengthening the education of the young generation targeted
upon relations between culture and development; perceiving
cultural diversity as a vital escape route for mankind faced
with an era of new technology; continuing and modernizing
traditional culture so that it can assume the role of a
"passport" toward the information society Consolidation of
family relations, measures to protect the three-generation
family (e.g., through appropriate housing and land allotment
policies), encouragement for community institutions and NGOs
(children's and women's organizations, the association of
elders, etc.) to become collective users of information and
IT and/or to set themselves up as intranet/Internet
providers. Adoption by government of technical, legislative,
and managerial measures relating to :
International gateways Regulations for terminal users,
Internet providers, Internet access, etc. Firewall control
regulations Copyright protection, social security,
protection of privacy, etc.
The technical measures though not principal are perceived as
important tools to integrate the country as well as its
individual citizens in the new world. There is no doubt that
we can benefit from exposure to ideas such as those
presented at this workshop, and it is hoped that Vietnam
will in the future have many more opportunities to learn
from regional as well as international experience so that it
can exploit the Internet to the welfare of its population.
Published by Interasia Organization
* Current Internet status in Vietnam
By Mr Tran Ba Thai
Institute of Information and Technology - Ha` No^i Vietnam
National Center for Science and Technology - Ha` No^i E-Mail
: t...@hanoi.ac.vn
Minute of AI3 (Asian Internet Interconnection Initiatives)
meeting in NUS and Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore on October
8/10, 1998
Current status Internet in VN :
- 19/11/97 : Internet Day of VN. VN officially opened to Internet (as
one of the very latecomers in Asia)
- IAP (only 1) : VNPT (unique P&T of VN)
- ISPs (only 4) : VNPT, FPT, Saigon Postel, IOIT (VAREnet, NetNam).
IAP : VNPT
- Only telcos could be IAP. VNPT is sole in VN.
- 2 national gateways :
(a) Ha noi : 256 kbps to Australia, and an E1 to Hongkong
(b) HCMC : 64 kbps abd an E1 to USA, US Sprint
- Hanoi - HCM City backbone : E1
- Keeping primary - VN TLD DNS server
- Tariff (fixed by Post & Telecom authority) :
(a) for ISP : $3,500 per month per 64 kbps
(b) for end-user : $4/month + 0.03$/minute
ISPs (only 4)
- VNPT (also IAP) : Dominant player in commercial area
- FPT of MOSTE (inister of Sci-Tech & Environment)
- Saigon Postel : Only HCMC.
- IOIT : VAREnet & NetNam. VAREnet : Non-profit ISP for academic
community. NetNam : Commercial ISP
- Number of users : 12,000
(a) IOIT : Under the VN National Center for Science & Technology (a
ministerial level gov, body). Research& development in IT. Owner of 2
ISP licence (a commercial and a non-profit academic).
(b) VAREnet (VN Academic - Research Network) : Dedicated ISP licence
owned by IOIT. Internet connectivity : full (shared 128k with NetNam of
IOIT). Domestic links 64/128k leased lines. Bundles phone lines,
Wireless SST (T1). Partners are Universities.
VAREnet partners : IOIT, NACESTID (former Central Sci-Tech Lib) - MOSTE,
HUT (Hanoi Univ. of Technology) - HCMCUT (HCMC Univ. of Technology) -
HCMCNU (HCMC National University) - Univ. of Can Tho, Danang and Thai
Nguyen.
Current status of AI3 in VN
- "AI3-Vietnam", the participation of VN in AI3
- Was submitted to th gov. of VN (early '97 by IOIT)
- Agreed by all the relevant ministeries : Sci-Tech & Environment - Dept
General of Post & Telecom (1/10/98) - Secirity - Finance - Planning &
Investment - Steering committee of Nat'l Program on IT.
- National Coordination Board for Internet in VN.
- The Gov. of VN is considering for the final licensing.
IOIT's role :
- Assures the domestic links and T1/E1 ground station to AI#
- Plays national coordinator role in VN for AI3
- Supports and joins AI3 and AI3 related activities with other univ. in
VN
- Promotes networking and network aided R$E activities in VN
AI3 effects :
- The first-breakthrough where a non-telco entity operates such a network
- A big bang of Internet of a academic community in VN (it is already
very known and awaited by most of univ. and R&D bodies in VN
News about internet in Vietnam
Internet Vietnam: Tortoise pace on the super highway
Before the country was hooked up with Internet, Internet
service providers (ISP) predicted they would have secured
50,000 subscribers right in the first year. But two years
into operation, this modern and fashionable service has had
only a modest 40,000 users, or one for every 2,000
population.
New Internet subsription in recent months has even dwindled
sharply despite Internet Access Provider VDC's (Vietnam Data
and Communications Company) efforts to open new access
points and operate high-speed channels and introduce new
services.
VDC now has nine direct access points and 37 indirect ones.
Its VNN network has been connected on high-speech channels
to the US, Japan and Hongkong (2Mbps) and Australia
(256Kbps). It has also offered such services as Web Hosting,
VNN-Mailplus and VNN-Mail Offline. Yet, even its own
subscription rate has remained low, standing at 2,000 new
subscribers per month on an average. Of the other four ISPs,
namely FPT, Netnam, SaigonPostel and Vietel, the situation
is not any better. VDC is leading the five with nearly
26,000 subscribers, followed by FPT with 12,000. Some 30
percent of the users are foreign businesses and
organizations. The other 40 percent are domestic businesses;
and the rest, individuals. Although the number of domestic
businesses using Internet has risen sharply from 13.7
percent last year, they are mostly limited to using e-mail
and opening web pages to promote business even though hardly
anyone of them has given e-commerce a serious thought.
E-mail remains the most used service with 100,000 users now,
followed by information search. The access rate averages at
42.7 percent, with the peak reaching 90.6 percent. The
figure is respectively 58.3 percent and 89.6 percent in Ho
Chi Minh City. IT experts blame the slow growth on high
costs and businesse