than triple to more than $300 million, President Itzhak Fisher said.

"We're very confident we'll exceed'' the revenue target, Fisher said. RSL won't report an overall profit but operations in several of the 15 countries where it provides service now will be profitable, he added.

RSL, controlled by Ronald S. Lauder, a son of cosmetics magnate Estee Lauder, competes with more established telephone companies worldwide, pricing its service about 15 percent below national carriers and benefiting from deregulation. The three-year-old telephone company plans to go public next year.

Corporate customers, including Estee Lauder Cos. as well as Credit Lyonnais and Eastman Kodak Co., use the Bermuda-based company for all or part of their service. The focus is on medium-sized business often overlooked by the big carriers like AT&T Corp., Fisher told the Bloomberg Forum.

"We are building an alternative service,'' said Fisher, 41, who previously worked for Bezek, Israel's national telephone company, as well as in the communications division of Clal Israel Ltd.

Besides using advanced digital switches from L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co. and Northern Telecom Ltd. to manage voice and data traffic, RSL this month paid $5 million for a 51 percent interest in Delta Three Inc., a Jerusalem-based provider of phone service over the Internet.

"That's building the telecommunications network of the future,'' Fisher said.

With an additional $5 million investment in Delta Three, RSL expects to push its commercial service sales over the Internet above the current 1 million minutes a month.

Still, the technology to provide phone service over the Internet requires improvement, he said.

"It's not as good as the big carriers yet,'' Fisher said.

VocalTec Communications Ltd. pioneered Internet phone service in 1995 and has yet to report a profit.

RSL also hasn't shown a profit yet. The company's first- quarter loss widened to $19.15 million, or $3.98 a share, from $4.8 million, or $1.64, in the year-earlier period. Revenue almost tripled to $42.2 million from $15.86 million.

Fisher owns about 14 percent of the shares, and Lauder interests own about 73 percent. The remainder is held by other RSL executives.

The RSL president said he was pleased by the rapid increase in revenue and said it will continue at about the same pace for the rest of the year. The company is targeting Latin America, where it has partnerships with wealthy Portuguese investors, for growth this year. Next year, RSL will target Europe.

RSL sold $300 million of 12.25 percent senior subordinated notes, due in 2006, last year. Fisher said that was sufficient to fuel investment in current operations.