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SkyTel aims to sell local services and international roaming capabilities direct to Hong Kong customers.

Mtel International's vice-president for Asia, Peter Grimes, said the company would continue to sell its international roaming capabilities through third-party vendors but intended to pursue its own local customer base.

With the company's entry into the local market, it is now in direct competition with its previous partners, Hutchison and ABC.

Although the Hong Kong market was mature and demanded sophisticated paging products, Mr Grimes said there was room for companies that could offer the right services at the right prices.

Mtel planned to launch a heavy marketing campaign soon, Mr Grimes said.

It was determined to become a big player locally, aiming to attract at least 60,000 to 70,000 users on its network in the next four years.

'We are certainly not entering this market to become some kind of bit-player,' Mr Grimes said.

'We understand the competitiveness and the maturity of this market, but certainly from a marketing point of view, we believe we are doing the right things, and spending the right amount of money to build significant brand awareness.' Mr Grimes said the firm would target a broad customer base from sophisticated business users and a largely untapped 'general consumer' market by offering a broad range of service packages.

SkyTel is offering several business services: bilingual paging; the ability to receive E-mail as Lotus Notes, Microsoft Mail or cc:Mail via the pager; and the ability to receive calls via the pager by simply dialling a specific account number when notified by the pager.

'Paging is really a crude word to describe the kinds of services that we can offer now on the network,' Mr Grimes said.

'With those kinds of premium services available, we believe we are making it much more of a tool for business users.

Originally started in the United States as that country's only nationwide paging service, Mtel has gradually rolled out its SkyTel coverage globally, at the 931.9375MHz frequency, to the point where it now provides coverage in more than 150 cities.

In Asia, its coverage includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Singapore. China, Taiwan, India and the Philippines to be added to its network soon.

Users that stand to benefit most, though, are frequent travellers to North America, where SkyTel offers complete coverage of the US, Canada and Mexico.

In Hong Kong, the company will also offer PCMCIA-based (personal computer memory card industry association) messaging via PDAs (personal digital assistants) such as Apple's Newton, Hewlett-Packard palmtop devices, and Sharp's IQ9000 series of electronic organisers.

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