VietNamNet Bridge – After MobiFone launched its SMS roaming service for pre-paid subscribers, Viettel and VinaPhone also announced they would offer this service.

On July 1, 2009, MobiFone unveiled its SMS roaming service for pre-paid subscribers for 71 countries and territories which have many overseas Vietnamese or attract large numbers of Vietnamese tourists.

After offering the voice roaming service for over 200 countries and territories, the SMS roaming service helps its pre-paid subscribers receive calls or messages from their friends and relatives when they go abroad.

The roaming charges are different in different countries, ranging from 2300 dong/message in Ukraine to 16400 dong in Israel, not including value-added tax.

To use this service, subscribers only send a text message as follows: they type DK and send to 9236. The charge for this message is 290 dong.

To catch up with MobiFone, Viettel also launched roaming service on July 7 for all pre-paid subscribers who have at least 200,000 dong in their accounts. To register for this service, users only need to send a text message. After registration, they can use the service for 30 days.

At present, Viettel’s roaming service is available in 21 countries and territories, namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Russia, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, Canada, the US, Belgium, Portugual, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. According to Viettel, these countries and territories have many Vietnamese people and Vietnamese tourists.

VinaPhone, not wanting to remain on the outside of roaming services, announced it would supply roaming services for pre-payers in August 2009. A Vinaphone representative said the firm is testing this service to serve pre-paid subscribers, who are disadvantaged compared to post-paid subscribers, who have been able to use roaming service for a long time.

VietNamNet/Tien Phong