“In the early morning, I was able to call my children and grandchildren who were far away and received calls from my brothers and sisters. I was very happy to know that everyone in the family was okay, despite the damage to the house. My family is very grateful to Do, who still traveled from Cam Hai to here on a stormy night to try to save the broadcasting station and repair the generator,” said Ms. Tran Thi Luyen, Mong Duong ward, Cam Pha city, Quang Ninh province, recounting the time after Typhoon Yagi swept through Quang Ninh on the evening of September 7.
Mong Duong commune has mountainous terrain, about 10km from Cam Hai commune (Cam Pha city). "Child Do" is one of 8,000 technical staff of Viettel from all over the country, who have been and continue to be mobilized to the northern provinces heavily affected by storm No. 3 such as Quang Ninh, Hai Duong, Hai Phong, ... to fix problems with stations and transmission lines caused by natural disasters.
“Yagi is the strongest super typhoon to hit Vietnam in decades, and has caused severe damage to telecommunications infrastructure. We have been greatly affected in both mobile and fixed infrastructure and are mobilizing all human and material resources nationwide to repair the damage as soon as possible to serve our people,” said Colonel Dao Xuan Vu, Deputy General Director of the Military Industry and Telecommunications Group (Viettel) from its branch in Ha Long City.
From network recovery…
Mr. Vu himself is part of the 8,000-strong Viettel team that is restoring the network. Early in the morning of September 8, while the broadcasting stations in Mong Duong commune were being restored by the station management teams, the Viettel Deputy General Director and a group of transmission technicians spent nearly 10 hours welding inter-provincial cables in Hoanh Bo ward (Ha Long city).
The broadcasting stations form the radio network, connecting to the user’s devices, while the cables form the core network, connecting the stations to each other and connecting the provinces to the headquarters – the heart of the telecommunications network. With a network covering over 99% of the territory, both of these components of Viettel become “bigger” targets, easily hit by the storm.
“Without this inter-provincial cable, a large number of broadcasting stations in provinces such as Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, and Lang Son would be at high risk of being isolated, rendering information rescue efforts within each province ineffective,” said Pham Van Quynh, a cable welding technician in Hoanh Bo ward.
This cable is about 100km long, technical signs help identify a 25km section where the cable is broken, and Mr. Vu's team's job is to find and reconnect the 1cm broken on this 25km. Based on information from surrounding stations and the landslide situation in the area, the team reached the broken cable location at 2am on September 8 after about 5 hours of moving in the rain and floods. Normally, welding the cable takes about 2 hours, but this time it took 8 hours because the team had to dig the ground, pull the cable, and weld the cable in the rain, floods, and landslides.
Similar efforts by nearly 8,000 people and 500 information response teams helped reduce the number of locations with information interruptions on September 9 by nearly half compared to the time right after the storm swept through the North, according to statistics from Viettel Network Corporation. Some provinces such as Bac Giang, Bac Ninh, Hung Yen, Lang Son, etc. have basically restored their networks.
…to customer support
At the same time that technical teams were troubleshooting the network, Viettel's customer service team was trying to support individuals and households whose information was interrupted by terminal devices. "I haven't been able to charge my phone for almost a day because of the power outage, and I couldn't call my parents to see what was going on, so I was very worried because I saw so much damage here. For me, Viettel's charging stations are like a lifesaver," said Ms. Pham Hoang Phuong, a customer at the Ha Long City branch on the afternoon of September 8. Nearly 200 charging points at Viettel stores and branches in the northern provinces have been prepared with generators and fuel to be ready to serve customers 24/7.
At the Viettel branch in Dong Trieu commune (Quang Ninh), Mr. Chu Van Hieu said: "Viettel brothers always open the door and run the generator so that people can charge devices such as fans, flashlights, light bulbs, and phones. To me, this support is very practical."
From the afternoon of September 7, when the storm made landfall, Viettel also coordinated with other telecommunications companies to deploy free mobile roaming services. Subscribers of other mobile networks can connect to Viettel's infrastructure to make calls and send messages in areas where the mobile network is disrupted and vice versa. The roaming process is performed automatically, without any action from the customer, and is maintained until the network is completely restored.
As of the morning of September 9, the total number of subscribers from other networks roaming into the Viettel network was 103,000, compared to the number of Viettel subscribers roaming into other networks of about 30,000 subscribers, supporting users from any network to maintain communication.
For prepaid customers who have exhausted the balance provided by Viettel of 20,000 VND, postpaid customers who have not paid their fees will continue to maintain communication. Customers using fixed broadband services that have problems will be lent equipment and use a temporary 0 VND package.
“Viettel continues to devote all its efforts, the number of rescue teams and support points is still increasing to restore services as quickly as possible. We also prioritize areas heavily affected by storms and floods,” said Mr. Vu.
