From: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Nhan Tran)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: NEWS: AT&T - VN
Date: 17 Apr 92 18:32:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Apr17.183208.7743
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: N/A
Originator: daemon@media.mit.edu

04/16

AT&T-Vietnam

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By BART ZIEGLER
 AP Business Writer
   NEW YORK (AP) -- AT&T said Thursday it reached an agreement with the
government of Vietnam to restore direct phone service between the United States
and the communist nation after a 17-year hiatus.
   The agreement follows approval earlier this week of the service by the State
Department, which modified the terms of a trade embargo against Vietnam to allow
it. The service still requires approval of federal regulators, which AT&T said
should happen within a few days.
   Initially, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. will offer the service through
connections established by phone companies in Hong Kong, Australia and
Singapore. Within a few weeks it will have 210 of its own circuits to Vietnam,
said James Hansen, AT&T's managing director for Southeast Asia.
   Hansen said in a telephone interview from Vietnam AT&T negotiated with that
nation's telecommunications authorities for four years to gain the right to
offer the service.
   AT&T said the service should be popular among the 700,000 Americans of
Vietnamese ancestry, who often have close relatives in Vietnam.
   Hansen said a Vietnamese government official told him it is the broadest
contact yet between a U.S. company and Vietnam.
   "We think that this is a good step, although a small one, in improved
relations between the countries," he said.
   Vietnam has been making noises for months that it wants to normalize
relations with the United States, which were broken off after communist North
Vietnam took over U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975.
   Under terms of the State Department's approval of the phone service, any
money Vietnam earns from it will be placed in an escrow account pending the
lifting of the trade embargo. Foreign phone agencies typically receive a fee for
completing phone calls from the United States.
   As part of its agreement with Vietnamese offY_Zx6>khPjST will try to get the
terms of the escrow account modified so some of the money could be used to buy
telephone equipment for Vietnam, Hansen said. AT&T is a major manufacturer of
phone equipment and has been on an aggressive overseas expansion drive.
   Under the trade embargo, no U.S. phone company was permitted to complete
phone calls to Vietnam. But some "pirate" phone companies have been providing
the service by using circuitous phone routes through other nations, AT&T said.
These companies charge up to $8 a minute.
   AT&T said its service will be priced from $1.77 to $2.91 a minute, based on
time of day and length of call.
   Once phone service is restored to Vietnam, only North Korea will remain cut
off from U.S. phone lines.
   AT&T recently received U.S. approval to restore service to Cambodia and now
is trying to negotiate an agreement with Cambodian authorities. Sprint, an AT&T
competitor, has offered service to Cambodia since January and also plans to
start service to Vietnam, said spokesman Vince Hovanek.