With countries constraining or advising their citizen to stay home in order to reduce the effect of the pandemic, people depend more heavily than ever on their internet connection for work and education.

To lessen the financial burden of customers, Viettel's member companies are providing telecommunications services at exceptionally low fee. Natcom triples fixed-line internet bandwidth for Haitian without changing the price. In Peru, Bitel has doubled internet bandwidth available to current users and gifted 1GB data to 3.6 million customers. Unitel reduces 40% data services fee for customers in Laos.

Remote education is also an area where Viettel are providing much needed support. Metfone - Viettel's venture in Cambodia - are providing free internet connection to the country's education portals. Metfone also halves the internet fee to more than 2000 students until May. In Mozambique, Movitel is planning to provide special data packages to student which allows free access to official study materials.

Viettel Group's companies also promoting the use of mobile money/wallet to avoid the need of going to physical bank. Movitel raised daily money transfer cap and reduced transfer fee, encouraging people to make payment and transfer safely from home. In Laos, Star Fintech collaborated with Red Cross Laos to raise money using the company's app u-money while waiving all transfer fee. Cambodia's Metfone is providing free wallet-to-wallet money transfer.

Do Manh Hung, CEO of Viettel Global, said: "Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we always have in mind our responsibilty to help the people and government of the countries in which we have investment. We commit to provide quality services and technoligies to the people in affected areas with advategous pricing or even free if needed."

ABOUT VIETTEL GROUP

Viettel Group is an international enterprise headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam. The group has investments in 11 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin-America. Viettel has five business lines including telecommunications and information technology (IT); research and manufacture of electronic and telecommunications equipment; defense industry; cyber security and digital services. Viettel Telecom, a member of Viettel Group, is the largest telecommunications service provider in Vietnam.