HANOI, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will pour one billion U.S. dollars into upgrading its broadband networks in the 2008-2009 period, according to local newspaper Saigon Liberation on Monday.

    The state-owned Vietnam Posts and Telecommunication Group is developing a modern network called NGN (next generation network) and building more optical fiber routes. The country is estimated to sign up 1.5 million broadband Internet subscribers and some 20 million mobile phone subscribers this year.

    Vietnam had roughly 18.6 million Internet users, or more than 22 percent of its total population by the end of 2007, up from nearly 14.7 million users by the end of 2006, the Vietnam Internet Network Information Center under the country's Ministry of Information and Communications told Xinhua recently.

    Of the 18.6 million Internet users, over 5.2 million are subscribers, including roughly 1.3 million broadband ones, it said, noting that the country had total international bandwidth of 12,115 Mbps, and 60,604 websites using Vietnamese domain ".vn" by the end 2007.

    Vietnam has posted an average annual growth of 36 percent in Internet users since its connection to the global computer network in November 1997. Under the ministry's plan, all ministries, sectors and state administrative agencies at district level upward, institutes, universities, colleges and senior high schools will have broadband Internet connections by 2010.