THAI BINH P&T

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Thai Binh is a plain province with geographical conditions making posts and telecommunications links easy to establish. During the past 10 years, and particularly since installing new technology in April 1993, Thai Binh P&T has reported encouraging results.

As of December 30, 2000 Thai Binh P&T had two HOST switching stations in addition to 26 other telecommunications stations, with a total capacity of 25,956 lines; three mobile phone stations having a total capacity of 1,500 lines; and one paging station. The inter-provincial transmission network is equipped with optic fiber cable and microwave equipment to have a total capacity of 76E1, 19E1 and 3CH of which have been used. The transmission system inside the province, which is basically microwave, has a capacity of 91E1 and 32CH. The peripheral network of the town and seven districts has a total length of 1,313,411m of cable of different types, including 24,440 couples of original cable which were all installed underground in various districts.

Thanks to adequate provincial transport infrastructure, first, second, and third-rank mail delivery routes have been mechanized. The entire province has 40 third-rank post offices, 144 village post office and cultural places and 124 postal agents and kiosks, increasing service diameter to 1.3-1.5 km for each service station.

Apart from traditional services such as mail, parcel delivery, telephone and telegram services, Thai Binh P&T offers new services including 108 enquiry, data communications, EMS, express money transfer, consignment and posts savings services which have expanded to the vast majority of districts and the town.

By December 30, 2000 Thai Binh P&T had 22,337 telephone subscribers or 1.26 telephones per 100 residents, 10.8 times that in 1993. Telephone subscriptions grew by 46.9 percent a year, resulting in an annual increase of 48 percent in revenues. Thai Binh P&T has 49 Internet subscribers.