card

The company's prepaid telephone card is a disposable long distance telephone card offered in denominations of HK$50 and HK$100. It is a convenient alternative calling option that allows a customer to pay in advance and obtain easy access to long distance telephone services. Available at selected outlets or through authorized dealers in Hong Kong, the company's prepaid telephone cards can be used immediately from any telephone, regardless of the network carrier. The company first launched its prepaid telephone cards in 1999. Although the customer would place a call in a normal fashion, the company's prepaid telephone card has a technological niche over its conventional counterpart. Whilst the conventional telephone card is capable of being used only over PSTN platforms, the company takes advantage of its prepaid telephone cards platform that combines traditional long distance product with a high-tech internet telephony international termination platform. The company's prepaid telephone cards platform has been designed as PSTN switch with VoIP functions, and enables the Group to provide a robust, reliable and quick prepaid product. Its architecture includes a backbone switching mechanism that offers an integration of circuit-switched and packet-switched networks, and automatically detects and adopts the best routing available having regard to routing costs, connection stability and QoS. With the simultaneous use of VoIP and PSTN switching, the company is able to achieve lower routing costs through the VoIP functionality whilst retaining relatively stable connections and QoS offered by the PSTN platform.