Malaysian international call provider REDtone expects its new broadband phone service, which was launched yesterday, to attract up to 20,000 users by April 2005. The company plans to expand the service into foreign markets and is forecasting earning 50% of its profit from overseas business within two years. REDtone currently controls around a third of Malaysia’s discounted long-distance call market, and also has units in China and Pakistan.
REDtone and other Malaysian broadband telephone service providers are experiencing delays to their VoIP expansion plans because major telcos such as Telekom Malaysia and Maxis have yet to reach interconnect agreements with the ‘015’ prefixed VoIP services. 015 users can make calls to any numbers, but while they can receive calls from other 015 users, they cannot receive calls from fixed line or mobile numbers until the interconnectivity issue is solved. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) stepped in and rushed out a document to serve as an interconnectivity agreement form earlier this month. The MCMC now plans to mandate a formal interconnectivity law.