Vietnam Opens 1st Satellite Broadband Gateway
Wed Nov 9, 2005
CAT QUE COMMUNE, Vietnam (Reuters) - Vietnam opened its first satellite-linked ground station on Wednesday to help bring telephone and Internet services to each village by the end of this year, officials said.
The $7 million iPSTAR gateway station, which Thailand's Shin Satellite PLC (SATT.BK: Quote, Profile, Research) leases to the state-run Vietnam Telecom International (VTI), would help reduce costs and provide more services, VTI said.
VTI Managing Director Nguyen Huu Khanh said users, equipped with a small satellite dish, a modem and a computer, could use broadband Internet, television and video conference.
Each terminal, costing 29 million dong ($1,828), could also be used for mobile phone connections.
"Without this satellite service, work to bring telephone to 100 percent of Vietnam's communes by the end of the year is not feasible because of the high cost," Khanh told reporters at the station site in Ha Tay province, 20 km (12 miles) west of Hanoi.
"This project is not aimed at commercial purposes as we want to narrow the digital gap between rural and urban areas."
Industry officials said the telecoms industry has huge potential for expansion in Vietnam given its population of 82 million.
The government plans to raise the number of telephones to 13.95 million this year, a 35 percent rise from 10.3 million last year and up from 7.39 million in 2003.
Shin Satellite, founded by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Asia's third largest satellite operator by market value, launched the $400-million Thaicom 4 satellite in August and commercial operations in Thailand started this month.
It plans to complete the launch of the remaining gateways in 12 countries including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and New Zealand within the next 12 months.
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