The company recently launched SoodSood to tap those who want to call from Thailand to anywhere in the world from PC-to-PC or PC-to-phones after receiving a licence from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to provide the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service.

The company's chief operating officer, Nirundon Tanongsakmontri, said the company would introduce at least 30 value-added services, such as video calling between PCs, next year. He would not say what the other services might be.

It also kicked off a campaign last week which will give Bt10 worth of calls to customers who invite others to register for SoodSood. Once customers invite 10 others to join, they will get an additional Bt50 in addition to the Bt100 already earned.

"We believe next year people will know more about us as a result of this campaign," he said.

He said the VoIP service had bright prospects, given that there are 600,000 broadband Internet users in Thailand. He estimated that the real number was about three million to four million when family members of those who are registered are included.

The VoiP business is in its infancy in Thailand and is expected to take off within three years and reach a level of intense competition after that, he said.

Currently 10 per cent of SoodSood subscribers are active callers that use their PCs to call to phones, which costs an average of Bt1 a minute to most countries. The rest call for free from PC to PC.

"Most of our customers are teenagers and they use the PC-to-PC calling service," he said.

Nirundon said the current average revenue per user per month of the PC-to-phone service was about Bt180, and he hopes the figure will increase to around Bt250 monthly after the launch of the value-added services.

Of the total, Bt180 per month will be from the PC-to-phone service, while value-added services will contribute the rest.

SoodSood features include call forwarding. SoodSood subscribers can pre-programme the company's software in their PC to forward calls from other SoodSood users to a fixed line or mobile phone in case they are not at their PCs when called.

Besides SawasdeeShop, telecom operators True Corp Plc and TT&T have also jumped on the bandwagon by cashing in on their large networks, but Nirundon said SawasdeeShop is much more serious about VoIP.

"If they don't focus on VoIP services they still have many businesses in the group to generate cash, but because we only operate VoIP service, if we're not serious we'll fall behind," he said. The company had also applied for a licence from the NTC to distribute overseas calling cards, in addition to a type-3 licence, which is for companies with their own large network.

He said the company was interested in offering an Internet international gateway service and other types of Internet-related services as well.

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation