Labor Hero Dang Van Than, the man who created an important boost for Vietnam's telecommunications industry

Comrade Dang Van Than, Hero of Labor in the Renovation Period, who made important contributions, making the Postal Service a pioneer in the country's Renovation, has passed away. After a period of serious illness, despite the attention of the Party, the State, and the wholehearted care and treatment of professors, doctors, and his family, due to old age and poor health, he passed away at 9:37 p.m. on May 24, 2023 (April 6, Quy Mao year) at his home, at the age of 92.

Comrade Dang Van Than at the ceremony to receive the noble title of Hero of Labor

Comrade Dang Van Than was born on November 6, 1932 in Phuoc Long commune, Giong Trom district, Ben Tre province (now Phuoc Long commune, Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province) in a family and hometown with a rich tradition of patriotism and revolutionary struggle.

In 1967, after graduating from university in the former Soviet Union and returning to Vietnam, he worked at the Institute of Postal Science and Technology under the General Department of Posts. After the war against the US ended in victory and the country was unified, he was sent back to the South to work as Director of Telecommunication Center III.

In 1984, he was transferred to Hanoi and held the important position of Acting Director General, then Director General of the General Department of Posts, Secretary of the Party Committee of the General Department of Posts, Alternate Member of the Central Executive Committee of the 6th Party, Member of the Central Executive Committee of the 7th Party, and Delegate of the 7th National Assembly. This was also the period when our country began to enter the Renovation process under the conditions of being besieged and embargoed, the economy was still poor and backward, the material facilities of the Postal sector were both lacking and had low technical level, revenue mainly came from newspaper distribution services and stamp sales... These were the great difficulties and challenges for the Postal sector.

Go straight to the cutting edge

In 1986, Vietnam's telecommunications industry faced a drastic demand for technological and service innovation. That drastic demand put the industry's commander-in-chief in front of a vital choice: whether to continue using analog technology or go straight to digital technology. To have new technology, resources were needed, specifically foreign currency. But at that time, Vietnam was under embargo, and the Postal Service industry had no foreign currency. While the analog network in Vietnam was still quite modern compared to socialist countries, at the right time, there was no investment capital but instead they had to buy new equipment, so many people were worried.

The only way was to cooperate with large technology companies that also saw Vietnam's potential as an attractive market. But at that time, cooperation with developed countries was a sensitive matter, so convincing them to get approval from above, below, inside and outside seemed impossible, but Dang Van Than, Director General of the General Department of Posts, overcame it.

Mr. Dang Van Than accompanied General Vo Nguyen Giap to visit the Telex Eltex V alpha Switchboard System of Hanoi Post Office (December 1989)

With a dynamic, creative, daring to think and act spirit, comrade Dang Van Than, together with the leadership of the Postal sector, bravely chose a strategic, breakthrough step, breaking the embargo and bringing the most modern technology to Vietnam, which is: skipping intermediate technology, going straight to modern technology in the direction of digitalization, automation and multi-service.

Overcoming many opinions that Vietnam is still poor and has no money to invest, so it should take advantage of the analog switchboard system transferred from some countries, the Director General of the General Department of Posts Dang Van Than decided to choose digital technology and go straight to modernization. Later, the history of the industry proved that Comrade Dang Van Than's viewpoint and vision were correct, creating a revolution in the Postal industry.

The solutions that comrade Dang Van Than and the leadership of the General Department of Posts have resolutely implemented have created the premise for the successful plans to accelerate the development of the industry, contributing to the Postal industry achieving breakthrough results in the development of information infrastructure, especially the indicators of asset growth, revenue, and budget contribution. The Postal industry is one of the leading industries in the cause of innovation, leading the cause of industrialization and modernization, the position of the Vietnam Postal industry in the international arena has been enhanced.

At the time comrade Ba Than and the leaders of the General Post Office decided to use digital technology, over 90% of the world's fixed telephone networks were using analog technology, but we decided to switch to digital technology.

With a dynamic, creative, daring spirit, comrade Dang Van Than, together with the leadership of the Postal sector, bravely chose a strategic, breakthrough step, breaking the embargo and bringing the most modern technology to Vietnam.

In difficult times, we need institutions and breakthrough solutions.

During the period when the Postal Service industry implemented innovation and moved straight into digital technology, our country was still besieged and embargoed by the US. At this time, the biggest obstacle for the telecommunications industry to develop and advance was investment capital, technology and human resources. In particular, investment capital. The problem was to find a solution to create capital to invest in developing the industry while the country was still very poor, there were no conditions for bank guarantees to borrow foreign capital, and there was no collateral. In addition, we also had to consider how to prevent future generations from being in debt,...

In such difficult circumstances, comrade Dang Van Than and the collective leadership of the postal industry discussed and decided on the main solutions that need to be implemented:

First, boldly ask for and be allowed by the State to operate under the self-borrowing, self-repaying mechanism with the State's guarantee.

Second, boldly seek foreign partners, strong telecommunications corporations with capital and high technology potential for cooperation; use international telecommunications as a breakthrough to attract foreign capital to serve domestic development investment. That is, implement the motto of "using the outside to nurture the inside".

Director General Dang Van Than inspected the operation of the new Digital Switchboard system put into operation on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu victory.

With the spirit of breaking away from the mindset of relying on, waiting for superiors, waiting for investment from the State, under the leadership of the Party and the drastic direction of comrade Dang Van Than, the Postal sector has adopted international cooperation, adopted the self-borrowing and self-repaying mechanism to create capital for the development of the Postal sector; sensitively and promptly applied the method of collecting call charges from recipients abroad to increase foreign currency sources; used international telecommunications as a breakthrough to develop the sector, took advantage of ODA aid and proposed a number of mechanisms to quickly create capital from foreign loans guaranteed by the State and paid by the Postal sector itself.

Thanks to this policy, the Postal sector has made a breakthrough, mobilized resources to modernize the network and build strong telecommunications enterprises in the future.

Foreign investment is not only for capital but also for technology, services and management. However, allowing foreign investment in the telecommunications sector was very sensitive at that time. If we only did what was safe and had little risk, there would be no innovation or breakthrough results. This was not only a matter of vision for Comrade Ba Than and the Industry Leadership Team, but also a matter of courage, daring to accept new things and taking responsibility.

The spirit of daring to experiment with new things is not only reflected in the choice of digital technology to develop the network but also in the fact that we had a business cooperation contract (BCC) between the General Department of Posts and Telecommunications and Telstra (Australia) in 1988, a form of foreign investment that had never been applied in Vietnam. Then, in 1995, the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corporation also signed a business cooperation contract with Comvik (Sweden) to build the current Mobifone network. This is the spirit of the State pioneering in experimenting with new models, leading change and paving the way for Vietnamese private enterprises to develop in the later stages.

The correctness and achievements of the historic decisions of the Postal sector have been recognized and highly appreciated by the Party and the State with many noble awards, especially the Postal sector is the first economic and technical sector to be awarded the Gold Star Medal for its pioneering achievements, leading the way in Innovation with remarkable advances in technology, services and significant contributions to the socio-economic development, construction and protection of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Comrade Dang Van Than was personally awarded the title of Hero of Labor in the Innovation period.

Director General Dang Van Than signed a joint venture contract for digital microwave production between the General Department of Posts and Telecommunications and AWA (Australia), marking the digitalization of Vietnam's transmission system (1989).

Telecom innovation

The first telecommunications innovation was more than 35 years ago. It was the conversion of telecommunications equipment and infrastructure from the old, outdated analog generation to the digital generation. The first innovation built a modern Vietnamese telecommunications infrastructure, solving the problem of information and communication for the entire population. The soul and leading nucleus of the first innovation was General Director Dang Van Than - Former member of the Party Central Committee, former National Assembly Delegate, Hero of Labor in the innovation period. People in the industry affectionately call him Mr. Ba Than, Uncle Ba Than.

The second telecommunications innovation is to transform telecommunications infrastructure into digital infrastructure - the infrastructure of the digital economy. This second innovation can be considered the largest-scale transformation, changing the nature of the telecommunications industry, opening up a huge new space for the telecommunications industry, much larger than the information and communication space. The significance of the telecommunications industry for the country's socio-economic development is therefore much greater. The opportunities are also much greater. The market is also much larger. The responsibility is also much greater. The telecommunications industry takes on a new mission: Building a modern digital infrastructure, including telecommunications infrastructure and data infrastructure, super-large capacity, super-wide bandwidth, universal, sustainable, green, open, smart and secure.

The lessons of the first innovation of the generation of General Director Dang Van Than will still be valuable for this second time, that is: Infrastructure must go first and go fast, go straight to modern technology, be in the top group of the world, master technology, make wise and far-sighted decisions, mobilize all resources, manage decisively and through this challenge, form a generation of good cadres for the industry and for the country.

At the Emulation Congress of the Postal Industry in the Renovation Period in August 2000, Mr. Dang Van Than was awarded the title of Hero of Labor in the Renovation Period.

Each generation must tell its own story.

Inheriting the past and opening the future. Each generation must tell its own story. That is how we develop. That is how the flow of history is created. Creating new developments, new breakthroughs for the Information and Communications industry is the best way for our generation to say thank you to the previous generation.

The next 10 and 20 years will be important shifts: From telecommunications infrastructure to digital infrastructure; from information technology to digital technology; from applying information technology to digital transformation; from processing limited information to processing unlimited digital data to create new values; from individual software to digital platforms; from processing and assembling to Make in Vietnam; from the domestic market to the international market; from journalism to digital media; digital technology becomes the basic productive force, digital talent becomes the basic resource, digital innovation becomes the basic driving force for development.

The work is new, the challenges are new, but the way we create these changes is not new. It is still the spirit, ethics and style of Uncle Ba Than: "dare to commit", "dare to think", "dare to do", "dare to innovate", "dare to take responsibility".

We, comrades and colleagues of the next generation, will follow in the footsteps of previous generations, always unite and agree, together build the Information and Communications industry to be increasingly developed and strong, well perform the functions and tasks assigned by the Party and the State, contribute together with the entire Party and the entire people to successfully carry out the cause of National Renovation initiated and led by our Party for the goal: "Rich people, strong country, democracy, fairness, civilization", for a prosperous and happy Vietnam.

Nguyen Manh Hung

Member of the Central Executive Committee of the Party

Minister of Information and Communications

According to mic.gov.vn