The pre paid fixed line service will, as of today, be available in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, St Catherine and St James, in the first instance, with the rest of the island coming on stream on a phased basis, ending July 3.

The telecommunications company said it has already had 200 enquires for the service.

In 2000, when mobile phones became price-competitive in Jamaica many land line customers opted for expedience and cost control and switched to pre-paid cellular.  In fact C&WJ said landline customers now stands as 330,000, down from about 500,000 in 2000.

Growth in cellular mobile subscribers subsequently increased from approximately 300,000 in 2000 to about two million today, according to data from the Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce.

C&WJ said yesterday that it decided to offer the new service after conducting intensive research and islandwide canvassing, as it sought to recapture some of the market lost to cellular telephones.

"What we are about to put into the market is what our customers asked for," C&WJ's CEO Rodney Davis said yesterday at the press briefing held at the Pegasus in Kingston to launch the product.

Davis said post-paid land line customers who surrendered their service because of the non-payment of bills would still be able to receive the pre-paid home phone service.

"Customers with credit challenges will be treated on an individual basis.  They may come in to have a payment plan worked out while still receiving their pre-paid home phone," he said.  "We won't be turning away anybody," Davis added.  To activate the service, pre-paid home phone customers will be required to pay a one-time activation charge of $770.  Customers would then be required to add credit using cards ranging in denominations from $60 to $2,000.

Customers, Davis said, would also be able to add credit web top-up or through the National Commercial Bank's ATM system.

The pre-paid call rates will be 99 cents per minute during off peak hours and $1.25 during peak for calls within the C&WJ network.  Calls to mobile phones are billed at $8 per minute, while calls to land lines outside of the C&WJ network are billed at $4 per minute.

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