TELECOMMUNICATIONS outfit Alif Telecommunications Sdn. Bhd. Will focus on providing more valu-added services on its prepaid fixed-line phone, the Ezeephone, to attract more subscribers.

Its group executive vice president technical services V. Rajendran said among the future applications and services under consideration are electronic phones, e-commerce and short message service (SMS) phone capabilities; broadband and wireless broadband access: and the use of bank card e-debit account for making calls, abbreviated dialling for low cost voice-over Internet protocol IDD services, and credit card reloads.

Also being considered is a payphone version which could potentially reduce cost up to between 30 and 40 per cent lower than what is currently offered in th marketplace, he added.

Rajendran said most of the new features and value-added services are expected to be available locally in the next two years.

He added that prospects this year look good for the company, following good response from the international markets for the Ezeephone. The company has received 189 queries from 77 countries, including Nepal, Sri lanka, Ivory Coast, Cameron, Egypt, Kenya, Slovakia, Somalia, Slovenia, Mongolia and Togo.

"To date, a network of non-exlusive authorised dealers had been initiated with the appointment of agents in 16 countries such as Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Maldives, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan and Sudan," Rajendran told Coumputimes in Kuala Lumpur last week.

Alif Telecommunications, he said, expects to sign several memoranda of understanding soon with Pakistan (50,000 units), Ghana (between 10,000 and 50,000 units), Yemen (10,000 units), Nigeria (50,000 units), Bangladesh (50,000 units) and India (50,000 units).

The outlook for the second quarter is also improving with possible contracts with Ethiopia (10,000 units), Tanzania (between 5,000 and 10,000 units) and Indonesia (between 50,000 and 100,000 units), Rajendran said.

"Hyundai Corp has also shown keen interest to deploy the phone in Korea and in countries where it has a presence," he added.

To date, 35,000 units of the prepaid phone have been installed locally, and 1,500 in Guinea, West Africa, since its availability in August 2002.

"The target is to reach 500,000 units installed internationally and locally this year. We expect to ride on the same success of prepaid mobile, which has capitalised about 60 per cent of the market. For fixed-line, we are looking at capturing 20 per cent of the prepaid segment within the next two to three years," Rajendran said.

Currently, the Ezeephone can be used to make local calls, standard trunk dialling, IDD and calls to mobile numbers; Internet (tmnet 1515 only); 1-300 and TNB 1-5454; emergency codes (999,994,991); and 100, 1050 and 1051 codes.

The Ezeephone prepaid fixed-line system and service comes from a joint venture between Alif Telecommunications and Telekom Applied Business Sdn. Bhd.