Reach Out and Touch Someone : AT&T; makes a pitch for direct telephone service to Vietnam
Enough time has passed since the fall of Saigon for some hard feelings to temper--and for tens of thousands of Vietnamese to flee to America. Today, there are 700,000 Vietnamese in the United States, 62,000 of them in Los Angeles County and 70,000 in Orange County. But because of the postwar U.S. economic embargo, they have been unable to place direct telephone calls to Vietnam. Now AT&T; is asking that it be authorized to make a direct telephone link to Vietnam, a request that should be granted. The Times believes the entire U.S. trade embargo should be lifted; but short of that, at the very least direct phone service should be permitted.
Only three countries--Vietnam, North Korea and Cambodia--are barred from direct phone service with the United States. In 1968, a similar ban against Cuba was lifted, although a U.S. economic embargo remains. As with Cuba, AT&T; has proposed a way to keep Vietnam from profiting if phone links are re-established: putting phone charges that would normally go to the receiving country in a frozen account that would be under U.S. jurisdiction.
Currently, many ways are found to get around the U.S. telephone ban. For example, some companies regularly advertise in Vietnamese community newspapers a process that includes first placing a call to another country where direct service is legal, usually Canada or Australia. The parties then are linked up in a conference call. But this can cost $8 a minute--more than double the rate of direct international calls to other areas of Southeast Asia. That ends up punishing the wrong people.
AT&T; has asked the U.S. State and Treasury departments to authorize direct phone service to Vietnam, a request that has not been acted on. This week, members of the House subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs reacted favorably to the idea, although congressional action isn’t required.
The time has come to reopen this vital link for Vietnamese to reach their native land.
