Vietnam has just come up with a new version of the draft Telecoms Law as initially assessed by the country’s “General Counsel” – the Ministry of Justice (“MOJ“).
By way of background, after the public consultation round, the Ministry of Information and Communications (“MIC“) revised the draft Telecoms Law and sent the revised version to the MOJ for appraisal.
Compared to the previous version, the Vietnamese lawmakers made the following notable changes in the new version:
- A new concept called “Internet application service in telecommunications” is introduced to cover all services that provide the functions to send, transmit, receive, and process information between telecommunications service users via the Internet. This concept replaces the concept of “communication service not utilizing telecommunications number storage” (which OTT communication services would likely fall into). The provider of “Internet application service in telecommunications” will also bear obligations different from those of the old concept.
- There are significant updates on the obligations and requirements for the providers of data center services and cloud-computing services. The lawmakers also assign the Government to be in charge of providing clarifications and guidance to such obligations and requirements (in future decrees following the issuance of the draft Telecoms Law).
- The draft Telecoms Law would expectedly be passed in late 2023 and take effect on 1 July 2024.
