~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

Year :      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

Vietnam begins building country gateway

HANOI - Work on the construction of Viet Nam's Country Gateway (VNCG) officially began on Thursday. The VNCG project is part of a global information development programme (Infodev), which aims to help developing countries to fully benefit from the existing modern information network.

VNCG will be built by the Viet Nam Data Communication Company (VDC) with the World Bank's funding of 640,000 USD and placed under the Viet Nam Post and Telecommunication Corporation (VNPT)'s management. The project construction is divided into three phases. The first phase, which covers the initial infrastructure construction, will finish in the third quarter of this year with a total investment of 40,000 USD.

The second phase, which is scheduled to last between 2-3 years, will be a period of deploying the project at a cost of 600,000 USD; and the third will covers the project operation in which the WB will connect Viet Nam's Country Gateway with those of other countries participating in the Infodev programme. With such a connection and the Internet, VNCG will provide information on the areas of economy, science- technology, healthcare and education for people living in rural, remote and isolated regions, thus helping to promote the national anti-poverty programme.

VNCG will be also connected with the Infodev's gateway in order to have access to global information to serve national development as well as to help other countries have information on Viet Nam's land and people.

Vietnam News Agency - January 17, 2003.


HCM City to launch local video telephone service

HANOI - Ho Chi Minh City's Post Office plans to put into operation a new local wireless video-telephone service, Cityphone, before the Lunar New Year Festival (Tet), said an official of the municipal post office. With the terminal of a mobile phone, subscribers of Cityphone can make calls to, and receive calls from any current telephones while their phones are within wave-covered areas.

Moreover, the Cityphone will provide additional services such as short messages, Internet access through 64 Kb transmission lines, receiving calls' number keeping, and others. Each subscriber of the service will pay a fixed subscription cost of 45,000 VND (over 2.92 USD) each month, said the official. In addition, they will pay additional cost of 454 VND (nearly 0.0295 USD) for each calling minute to other subscribers of the service and subscribers of wired telephone services, and vice versa.

Vietnam News Agency - January 17, 2003.