Telemac Readies Digital Prepaid Phones

By Joseph Palenchar On Feb 12 2001 - 8:00am

LOS ANGELES -Digital phones incorporating Telemac's prepaid technology will likely be available to U.S. consumers by the end of the year, said Telemac chairman Kenin Spivak.

Telemac-enabled analog phones have been available for several years in the United States through such airtime resellers as Assured Technologies Cellular and TRACfone Wireless (formerly Topp Telecom).

In the next couple months, Telemac will announce CDMA phone models that will incorporate its prepaid technology, which controls real-time accounting and billing functions.

In about a month, the company will also announce plans for Telemac-enabled SIM cards that, when used with about half the GSM phone models available in this country, will deliver prepaid capability.

Those cards will be available in the third quarter. Additional cards will be available in 2002, he said, so that any GSM phone in the United States will be prepaid-capable.

"Once we port our technology to a SIM card" said Spivak, "there's no need to integrate it into particular handsets."

Telemac developed the prepaid software and licenses it to phone makers, airtime resellers, and carriers.