|
Telecommunications sector to expand rural services
Developing broad band services in rural areas in Viet Nam and decreasing the technology gap between rural and urban areas is one of the goals that the government and telecommunications businesses have set.
A programme to provide public telecommunications services (PTS) in 2010 is entering its final year. Tran Manh Dung, an official of the Ministry of Information and Communications, said efforts to gradually decrease the gap between rural and urban areas are being managed by State and telecom companies. It's estimated that 10.7 out of 100 people now use public telephones in remote areas, which is up 428 per cent from 2004 when only 2.5 out of 100 people were using these public telephones.
The number of Internet subscribers per 100 people has increased from 0.018 in late 2004 to 0.32 users per 100 people by the end of last year.
In late 2009, it was estimated that there were 4,873 public telecom access areas. Thus, 21 million people have benefited from this programme.
According to Dung, from now to 2015, the Ministry of Information and Communications will continue to implement a specific programme that hopes to further popularise faster telecommunications services, internet, radio, and televisions. The programme also hopes to develop a strong broad band infrastructure in rural areas.
Rural people will also gain access to broadcasting services and digital TV equipment.
In Viet Nam, the concept of owning digital products and content is not new to the urban population. However, digital services are still inaccessible to 70 per cent of the population living in rural areas.
Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam Multimedia Corporation (VTC), a digital service provider in Viet Nam, said his company hopes to provide digital content to residents throughout the country by 2015.
The development of broad band is imperative for the expansion of digital services across the country.
VNPT, Viettel and FPT have approximately 2.5 million ADSL subscribers. According to analysts, the ADSL market is saturated in urban areas, so in the coming years telecom companies will heavily invest in rural markets. At the end of 2009, the country had 107.5 million telephone subscribers, and 85.7 per cent of the users were mobile phone subscribers.
The boom in the telecommunications service will create favourable conditions for enterprises to develop digital service for rural markets.
In order to attract customers in rural areas, suitable services should be congruent with their needs and finances.
vietnamnews
|
