Domestic telecom firms cut int'l call charges

HCM City (VNA)- Calling internationally has become
cheaper, thanks to price cuts from the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) and Vietnamese military telecom corporation Viettel.

Viettel announced lower rates for international direct dial (IDD) calls
by 55 percent to 3,600 VND (0.22 USD) a minute to encourage more outgoing
calls on September 1.

If a business makes four or five international calls a day and each call
lasts four minutes on average, then the monthly IDD bill would be less than
100 USD with the new charges, a saving of 200 USD.

As of September 1, VNPT is offering discounts on post-paid IDD services.
The service will cost 500 VND for the first six seconds and 60 VND for every
second afterwards.

According to some domestic telecom operators, Vietnam 's IDD rate is
among the world's lowest.

For example, it is 30 percent lower than rates in China , 65 percent in
Singapore , 79 percent in Thailand , 87 percent in Australia , 82 percent
in England and 23 percent in the US .

The lower rates are a far cry from just a few years ago. In 2001, people
using IDD services to make international calls from Vietnam would pay
45,000 VND a minutes. In 2003, the rate decreased to 27,000 VND. Two years
later, the fee dropped 63 percent to 9,800 VND.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam
received 2 billion minutes of calls from overseas last year. International
outgoing calls only accounted for one tenth of that number at 200
million.