HANOI,June 16 (Xinhua) -- After Friday midnight, fixed phone area codes of 23 Vietnamese localities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, will be changed to ensure a more unified form.
The 23 cities and provinces, home to nearly 3.1 million fixed phone subscribers, or 58 percent of Vietnam's total, are the country's last localities to have new area codes, all with three digits, except Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority said on Friday.
The phone area code of central Khanh Hoa province will be changed from 58 to 258, and southern Binh Duong province from 650 to 274, while that of Hanoi from 4 to 24, and Ho Chi Minh City from 8 to 28.
Earlier, 40 Vietnamese cities and provinces have new phone area codes, so that all localities nationwide will have three-digit codes (excluding Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City), starting with digit 2.
By the end of last month, Vietnam, with a population of some 95 million, had 15.3 million fixed phone subscribers, and 119.7 million mobile ones, said the authority under the Ministry of Information and Communications.
