Public fund to provide phone services for 250 communes

The Public Telecom Fund will allocate about VND1 trillion (US$62.5 million) to develop public telecom services in rural and mountainous regions.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has assigned four telecom companies, the Viet Nam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), Viettel, EVN Telecom and SPT, to implement the programme.

According to Deputy Minister Tran Duc Lai, fixed phone networks will be installed in 254 communes that don’t have phone services this year.

In addition, about 30 per cent of the total 2,000 communes without public Internet service points will receive the facility this year. Another 600 public Internet service points using dial-up mode will be upgraded to broadband.

The Public Telecom Fund, operated by the Ministry of Information and Communications, will also offer free two-way communication services for fishing boats and rescue activities.

Since last year, contributions by telecom businesses to the Public Telecom Fund will be calculated according to the income of customer usage.

As for mobile services, the contribution will be 3 per cent of total revenue. International telephone services and channel hiring services will contribute 2 per cent of total revenue.

Interprovincial telephone services and channel hirers will contribute 1 per cent of total revenue. (VNS)