Millions of new phone users connect in January

Hanoi (VNA) - Telephone service providers added 3.2 million new subscribers to
their books during January, 60 percent higher than during the same period last year,
the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported.

As of the end of January 2009, there were a total of 82.6 million phone subscribers
in Vietnam , 85.5 percent of them mobile phone users, meaning that 97.5 percent
of the population has access to a telephone, either via a mobile service provider
or a fixed line, according to the GSO.

The total number of phone users at the end of 2008 was 79.4 million, which included
13 million landlines, a leap of 53 percent compared to the previous year, making
Vietnam one of the fastest-growing nations in terms of telephone usage

This success can be attributed to the efforts made by service providers to expand
their networks to include rural, mountainous and remote areas and to improve their
service quality during the past year.

Internet use in Vietnam also grew significantly during 2008, with 6.7 million
new internet subscribers over the course of the year, up 28.4 percent from the
previous year's figure.

Boasting 20.67 million internet users, Vietnam is now one of the top twenty
countries in the world in terms of internet use.-Enditem