Pacific Internet (Thailand) vice president Supachot Kanjanakontong said the company has signed a marketing agreement with callthai.net to provide a VOIP service beginning from next month.

The service will allow customers to make cheap calls from personal computers to telephones anywhere in the world. It will be launched in three phases.

It will begin with a "softphone" programme, which is free software allowing users to make VOIP calls; then it will provide a ready-to-use VOIP hardware kit, allowing users to plug a phone into a USB port on their PC; and, lastly, it will offer a pre-paid card, making it convenient for VOIP users to fill-up and pay for their VOIP calls, he said.

The second phase is to begin in July and the third phase in August, Supachot said. The prepaid card for VOIP calls aims to help the service gain popularity.

Earlier this year, the National Telecommunication Commission liberalised the VOIP service for PC-to-phone calls, but it maintains a ban on phone-to-phone VOIP to protect state-owned CAT Telecom Plc, which banks on traditional overseas calls for revenue.

Pacific Internet (Thailand) senior vice president Thayawat Unnanond said the company had recently changed its strategy from focusing on providing Internet service to offering Internet Protocol-based communication solutions such as VOIP and WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access).

It recently announced trials of a mobile WiMax service in Singapore.

Thai telecom authorities have not yet allocated frequencies for WiMax, which is a wireless technology similar to wifi but able to cover a much greater distance.

Since early this year, Pacific Internet (Thailand) has also shifted its focus to providing Internet services from the consumer market to the corporate market. The firm has stopped seeking new individual consumers, although it continues to service existing customers.

"We've shifted our focus to corporate customers, for whom quality of service is more important than pricing. We're targeting multinational corporations that know us well," said Thayawat.

Pacific Internet, which is listed on the Nasdaq, is headquartered in Singapore and currently has a presence in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australia, India, Malaysia and Thailand.

Supachot said Pacific Internet was favoured by multinational corporations because it offered clients a service-level agreement that guaranteed, for example, uptime and downtime, as well as a response time for its service staff.