Why is Starlink only allowed to have 600,000 subscribers in Vietnam?

According to the Government’s decision on March 23, 2025, SpaceX, the company that owns Starlink, can pilot telecommunications services using low-orbit satellite technology, with some conditions such as a maximum number of subscribers of 600,000 and must ensure national defense and security requirements. The pilot period is for 5 years from the date the business is established in Vietnam, but must end before January 1, 2031.

UMBRELLANguyen Anh Cuong, Deputy Director of Telecommunications – Ministry of Science and Technology, said that the number 600,000 was given because the management agency had to localize the scope for monitoring and evaluation, because the service was new in the pilot phase.

Another reason comes from technical factors. Unlike fiber optic or terrestrial mobile networks that can be expanded by pulling more cables or building more stations, satellite Internet is limited by the orbital infrastructure itself. Each satellite has a certain amount of bandwidth, maximum about 60 Gbps, and must be divided among all users in the coverage area. Therefore, the problem when deploying satellite Internet is not only how many people want to use it, but also how many people the system can serve while still ensuring quality.

The coverage area of ​​the smallest satellite is about 300 square kilometers. As the number of subscribers increases in the same area, the bandwidth is divided and the speed decreases. Therefore, 600,000 subscribers is considered the “technical threshold” in current conditions if we want to keep Internet speed around 100 Mbps per person.

The actual demand for satellite Internet is not great. A representative of the Department of Telecommunications said that Starlink subscribers in some countries in the region currently range from 100,000 to 300,000. For example, in Indonesia, the population density is half that of Vietnam but the terrain is divided by many islands, so this is an ideal market for satellite Internet. However, the number of users in this island nation is only about 150,000-200,000.

From a market perspective, 600,000 subscribers only account for 1-2% of the fixed Internet market share in Vietnam (currently 25 million subscribers). Therefore, the Department of Telecommunications believes that the appearance of the service will not have much impact on domestic businesses, while people have more flexible options depending on their needs.

Although not large in scale, satellite Internet is considered an important piece to complete telecommunications infrastructure in places where the terrestrial network cannot reach. The service provides broadband Internet at sea, in the air and in difficult, less-populated areas.

Not only providing Internet to end users, Starlink also plays a supporting role in special situations. According to the management agency, when a major storm or flood occurs, the ground transmission system may be interrupted. Repairing broken electric poles and transmission poles is often complicated and takes a lot of time. At that time, satellite Internet can be used to establish a temporary transmission line, connecting BTS stations to the core network.

“Satellite Internet helps restore connection very quickly, while waiting for the problem to be resolved,” Mr. Cuong said.

In some cases, satellite Internet can also become the main transmission stream for BTS stations in remote areas, helping the network deploy services more economically than having to pull tens of kilometers of fiber optic cable on mountain roads.

Starlink is a satellite Internet service developed by SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, operating with low orbit satellites about 550 km above the ground, much lower than traditional geostationary satellites at an altitude of more than 35,000 km. In mid-February, after completing procedures, the company was officially licensed in Vietnam, but has not announced the time to deploy services to the domestic market.