Dartmouth could be the birthplace of a £250m a year telecommunications operation capable of slashing mobile telephone bills by a monster 90 per cent and bringing up to 20 new jobs to the town.

The Dartmouth company Friendly Ltd is the first in the UK – and possibly the world – to attempt to use the internet to take on the telecommunication big boys for a slice of the massive mobile telephone business.

Business partners Tony Lewis and Mark Ashton have developed a unique downloadable computer application which will allow Smartphone users to bypass the communications giants such as Orange and O2 and make their calls via the internet.

Customers would then use a pay-as-you-go system that would see their phone bills fall by up to 90 percent, claimed Mr Lewis – who used to run his own communications business before retiring to Dartmouth.

He pointed out that there are already 40 million Smartphone users in the UK.

If his company can snatch just five percent of that business, it will represent a massive two million mobile phone owners, worth anything up to £250m a year.

Mr Lewis says he is hoping to get there in a year as the operation in Dartmouth is turned into a call centre employing at least 20 people.

Friendly is currently based in an employment unit in the town's Admirals Court but Mr Lewis said he expects to outgrow the site and is keen to find larger alternative accommodation in the area.

Mr Lewis and Mr Ashton have already invested £250,000 in developing the all important app and setting up a secure telecommunications exchange hub in London.

He explained that the Smartphone users are able to download the app free of charge, which will enable the phone owners to use wi-fi or 3G technology to make their calls.

The partners launched their company at the Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth, with some 40 local businesses attending.

The plan to go national, reaching more than 30,000 companies and business people at London Olympia, at the end of this month, said Mr Lewis.

Mr Lewis, who sold his own business five years ago to retire to Dartmouth, lives in Above Town.

'I took a couple of years out and played with my boat but there are only so many garden centres you can visit,' he said, explaining why he was getting back into the telecommunications business.

He said he had teamed up with Mr Ashton, who also lives in Dartmouth, where he was a consultant in the catering trade.

'We are friends and we have developed this together. Mark's skills are in the customer relations side of things,' he added.

He said Friendly was the first company of its kind 'in the world that I know of and certainly in the UK'. And he added: 'This is the most exciting and market disruptive technology I have experienced in my 30 years in the industry.'

Mr Ashton said: 'The directors of Friendly have a commitment to keep the company based within the local area and we foresee that Friendly will be employing at least 20 new members of staff in our rapidly expanding customer support department to service our projected client base.'