At the question-and-answer session on the information and communications sector on the morning of November 12, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Thu Nguyet (Dak Lak delegation) said that according to the 2024 survey, the telecommunications and Internet infrastructure index has grown quite strongly in the past 2 years. This shows that people and businesses in our country are benefiting more from digital services and applications.
However, people's access to mobile broadband is currently not widespread, with clear differences between regions and areas, and it is even more difficult for ethnic minorities and mountainous areas.
Delegate Thu Nguyet asked the Minister of Information and Communications to let her know what policies the Ministry will have in the coming time to support people and narrow the gap in mobile broadband access between regions and areas across the country.
Responding to this issue, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said that in the past, telecommunications coverage and now Internet coverage had a gap between cities and remote areas; with poor, near-poor households or households with special difficulties.
Offering solutions for poor and near-poor households, the Minister emphasized "covering the low and low" to ensure everyone has a signal.
“We have enough money, even a little extra, to be able to provide coverage, now we just need a transparent mechanism,” said Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, adding that a decree on this content will be issued this year. The Minister accepted responsibility for this delay.
The second goal, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung emphasized, is to strive for poor and near-poor people to have smartphones and use them for free.
According to the Minister, the Public Telecommunications Fund currently has a budget of about 400,000 telephones.
"We will ask the Prime Minister for permission to increase this fund so that poor and near-poor families will all have smartphones, with about 1-1.2 million devices," the Minister affirmed that this program can "cover the whole world" so that all poor people have smartphones.
Minister Nguyen Manh Hung affirmed that people can use it for free - a policy that perhaps only Vietnam has, one of the "best in the world". Other countries just provide coverage and then leave it there, whoever has money can use it.
In Vietnam, for the poor, the government supports both phone and usage fees at 65,000 VND/month/device/person; 130,000 VND if using fixed Internet.
"I have been to many countries and consulted the experiences of many countries. In terms of coverage in remote areas and creating conditions for poor and near-poor people to use Internet telecommunications services, perhaps Vietnam is the best in the world," the Minister shared.
Regarding the issue of signal depression discussed by delegate To Van Tam (Kon Tum delegation), Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that the issue of coverage means being able to use the Internet, use online public services, study, work and shop online... However, in reality, people in remote areas have little knowledge and are not familiar with cyberspace.
Proposing a number of solutions, the Minister stated that the first is to proactively prevent and control the entire cyberspace; the second is to train and propagate to people, improve resistance, train digital skills, especially online training programs in ethnic languages.
The Minister of Information and Communications said that we currently have 220,000 collaborators who can go to each house to propagate to the people. This year, for the first time, the Ministry of Information and Communications organized a congress of people working in information work at the grassroots level.
