Vietnamese poor to get free phones - reports

Reports from Vietnam suggest a telco is planning to supply 110,000 free phones to poor people in the region.

According to daily, Thanh News, EVNTelecom has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Post and Telematics in Vietnam to launch the scheme. Recipients of the free phones would be “exempt from all charges during the first year”.

The paper reports that EVNTelecom, part of the country’s Electricity of Vietnam Group, will supply IQLinks handsets running on CDMA.

This is not the first time the poorest sectors of Vietnamese society have been targeted by apparently benevolent gestures from the government or the private sector. Last year the Vietnamese government announced that it would provide public telecom services to the poor until 2010.