Vietnam officially removes phone card service A woman walks by a damaged, deteriorated public phone booth in Ho Chi Minh City in this Tuoi Tre file photo. The image of a Vietnamese resident inserting a plastic calling card at a public phone booth to make a call is now something of the past as the service was Monday officially stopped. The Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) announced on Monday that they have officially ceased the phone card service, putting an end to the most popular public telephone mode back in the late 1990s in the country. In late 1997, public phone booths, operated by the insertion of a phone card instead of coins, began to emerge in some big cities and quickly won the choice of local students, white-collar workers, and foreign visitors, thanks to its wide range of conveniences and features. The service continued to enjoy its reputation in the next 10 years, while VNPT decided to install 10,000 additional phone booths countrywide between 2002 and 2006. The image of a customer making phone call with the card inside tourism spots, hospitals and schools have become popular at that time.  However, along with the rapid growing of the telecommunication market, with the constantly declining fares for the Internet and mobile phones, telephone cards have gradually lost popularity. “With the peak time between 1997 and 2002, the cardphone has well fulfilled its ‘historical duty’,” telecommunication experts commented. TuoitreNews