Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) on October 8 soughtpermission for its clients' customer care and support centres to makeoutgoing calls and send text messages to improve customer service.

Therequest was sent to the Ministry of Information and Communications(MIC) for telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and 1900, which areonly allowed to take inbound calls from customers.

Most of VNPT'sclients, which subscribe to telephone numbers with the prefix 1800 and1900, complained about the need for outgoing calls and text messages toenable them to better serve their customers. They include banks,financial companies and other service enterprises.

Phan Hong Hai,head of MIC's telecommunications department, said outgoing calls andtext messages were not allowed on telephone numbers with the prefix 1800and 1900 to prevent spam calls and messages.

"VNPT must checkthe current operations of its 1800 and 1900 clients and report these tothe MIC before seeking approval," he added.

Fraudulent calls andtext messages have become a headache for both mobile phone users andnetwork operators over the past few years.

An estimated 9.8million spam text messages are sent to Vietnamese mobile phone usersevery day, and this helps the network operators rake in an enormous 3billion VND (143,000 USD) a day and 4.3 million USD a month, a recentreport of Internet security company Bkav Corporation revealed.

Whilethe unwanted messages annoy recipients, network operators refuse totighten management to discourage spammers and even launched servicesthat make it easy for spammers to bombard mobile phone users with spammessages.-VNA