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Vietnam's Phone Rate Rises to Nearly 18 Percent

Posted on: Friday, 16 December 2005, 09:00 CST

Vietnam's phone rate rises to nearly 18 percent

HANOI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam now has roughly 14.7 million phone subscribers with 55.9 percent being mobile ones, or over 17. 9 phones per 100 residents, up from the rate of 9 percent late last year, the country's biggest telecommunications firm told Xinhua Thursday.

"To date, we've signed up more than 12 million phone subscribers, including over 6 million mobile phone subscribers. We' ll have brought phone services to all communes nationwide by the end of this month," said the state-owned Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corporation.

The number of mobile phone users in Vietnam with population of over 82 million, which stood at 8.2 million in early December, is expected to surge to 21.2 million by late 2008, the corporation said, citing declining prices of better mobile phones and services, and rising affluence of local residents as major reasons.

Under Vietnam's strategy on developing information technology and telecommunications, every 100 residents will have 32-42 phones, over 10 personal computers, and 8-12 Internet subscribers by 2010.

As of late last month, Vietnam had 9.9 million Internet users, or more than 11.9 percent of the total population, compared with the respective figures of 6 million and over 7.3 percent in late November 2004.

Of the 9.9 million users, nearly 2.7 million are subscribers, many of whom use broadband Internet services, the Vietnam Internet Network Information Center told Xinhua Thursday, noting that the country's total international bandwidth currently stands at 3,505 Mbps.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, Vietnam has ranked second in the world, after China, in telecommunications growth rate in recent years.

Source: Xinhua News Agency - CEIS

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