IRVINE, Calif., June 14, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- VoIP Telecom Inc. (OTCBB:VOPT) Wednesday confirmed the company's completion of a purchase agreement to acquire International Communications and Equipment (ICE) of Kirkland Lake, Washington. Under the agreement, ownership of all the assets of ICE transfers to VoIP Telecom in return for which VoIP Telecom will provide all capital necessary to implement the ICE business plan. The Founder-President-Owner of ICE, Ken Martin, receives 2.5 million shares of VoIP Telecom issued under rule 144, with a restrictive legend for a one-year hold.
The primary business of ICE is the deployment of digital, voice and data via fiber optic, Internet circuit (VoIP), satellite and public switched telephone networks (PSTNs). The company's network roll-out is commencing in Germany and Russia, utilizing hardware (gateways, digital signal processors and routers) coupled with existing fiber optic and satellite networks via both originating and terminating facilities installed initially in North America, Europe and the Middle East.
Company growth will be accelerated through partnerships, telecom licenses and joint venture agreements with government telephone enterprises. A wholly owned German subsidiary of ICE, ICE GmbH located in Potsdam (Berlin), will supply existing commitments for approximately 3 million long distance minutes per month outbound, and for 5 million minutes per month inbound from Russia. Out of its center for European operations, ICE GmbH is responsible for marketing, operational and command center control of VoIP telecom networks involving exchange carriers both within and between European countries. With five gateways already installed and tested in Russia, VoIP Telecom expects traffic to flow during the current calendar quarter.
Subject to equipment installation, the forecast annual profit from ICE's Germany-Russia operations alone is in excess of USD30 Million from generating up to 500 million voice minutes. ICE also has projects pending in Poland, The Ukraine, Thailand, Malta, The Lebanon, Malaysia, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Jordan, Libya., Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Italy, Greece, France, Norway, Azerbaijan and Georgia. For additional information visit VoIP Telecom at wwww.ibchannel.com .
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Asia Capacity Exchange (ACE), the first online marketplace for trading international telecommunications capacity in the Asia Pacific region, and Telecom South America have completed the world's largest ever purchase of telecommunications bandwidth through an exchange market. In the US$25 million deal, ACE will provide submarine fibre cable and international bandwidth capacity through a bandwidth exchange transaction to Telecom South America Inc (Telecom SA). The announcement comes hard on the heels of the opening of ACE's US office and virtual trading desk for telecommunications transmission routes between Asia and North and South America.
RateXchange Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board:RXCH), the leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce exchange for telecommunications bandwidth, announced it has completed an important trade utilizing the company's CustomAuctions platform. "RateXchange is accelerating the adoption of a new on-line channel for buying and selling bandwidth," said Russ Matulich, RateXchange Corporation, Vice President of Sales. "We will continue to offer one-stop-shopping through RateXchange's Real-Time Bandwidth eXchange, CustomAuctions and Lead Generation. These services provide participants with industry-leading solutions that enable them to buy and sell wholesale bandwidth quickly and reliably."
Motorola Inc.'s (NYSE:MOT) Multiservice Networks Division (MND), the leader in smart access solutions, announced that it has reached an industry milestone with 250,000 packet voice ports installed worldwide. "Hitting this target shows that service providers as well as end-user organizations have sized up the potential for converged networks carrying voice as well as data and are starting to adopt it in significant numbers," said Neil Fairbrother, global marketing manager for Motorola's Vanguard Voice. "We're seeing a sharp upward trend from our customers requesting VoIP as part of their multiservice access requirements. With proven high quality packet voice performance and service capabilities available, businesses are now moving confidently to reap the inherent cost benefits of VoIP."
ITXC Corp(R) (Nasdaq:ITXC) has added a new ITXC webtalkNOW! customer, HotTelephone.com. HotTelephone.com, a Houston-based company, has expanded its service and is now using ITXC webtalkNOW! Service(SM) to offer its members high quality web-to-phone calling via ITXC.net(TM), the world's largest Internet telephony network. In addition, ITXC announced that its web-to-phone service, ITXC webtalkNOW!, has hit its first record one million minute day.
A $27 million investment from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's private investment company sent shares of FVC.com (Nasdaq:FVCX) skyrocketing recently. FVC.COM manufactures broadband video storage and broadcast servers for both IP and ATM environments. As a result of the investment, Allen's company, Vulcan Ventures, owns about 16% of the Internet-based video-conferencing provider. FVC.com, Inc. provides video networking solutions that integrate video with voice and data over existing network infrastructures. The Company's video server products provide a range of critical video services such as multicasting, recording, storage and translation across the Internet and corporate Intranets. The Company's broad product line enables it to deliver end-to-end solutions for enterprise video applications such as distance learning, telemedicine, video marketing and video manufacturing.
AT&T Corp.'s cable programming arm, Liberty Media Group , has completed buying a 9.9 percent stake in IDT Corp. (Nasdaq:IDTC), the controlling shareholder of Net2Phone Inc. Net2Phone Inc. (Nasdaq:NTOP), a leading provider of Internet telephony services, and NextCard (Nasdaq:NXCD), the leading issuer of consumer credit on the Internet, announced an agreement to utilize the powerful customer base of Net2Phone to market NextCard's credit cards. Under the agreement, NextCard will gain valuable access to the vast Net2Phone user base through direct marketing and advertising on the Net2Phone software.
STARTEC Global Communications Corporation, (Nasdaq:STGC) a leading provider of VoIP services, announced that it has entered into an agreement with ONSE Telecom of South Korea for the provision of VoIP services. Under the agreement, ONSE will use STARTEC's network to provide VoIP services to its customers. In turn, STARTEC will provide VoIP services to Koreans living in North America. South Korea has a population of over 50 million, representing a rapidly growing, vibrant communications market. Additionally, there are 1.4 million Koreans living in North America.
Broadwing Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadwing Inc. (NYSE:BRW), announced an agreement with eLoyalty (Nasdaq:ELOY) to provide a dedicated private network, communications services, and data center collocation. eLoyalty, an Illinois based company, chose Broadwing due to the flexibility of its sales and engineering staff, their network management experience with Voice over IP (VoIP) and Cisco router solutions, and their ability to provide alternative network designs for the Loyalty Foundation offering.
billserv.com Inc. (Nasdaq:BLLS), an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) service bureau, announced the launch of eCare, billserv.com's Internet Interaction Center (IIC) that enables consumers and customer service representatives (CSRs) to interact privately, in real time via the Internet. With eCare, billserv.com opens a new, interactive communications channel for companies and their customers to interact using advanced, Web-based technologies including e-mail, voice over IP (VoIP), Web chat, browser sharing, Web call back and Web white boarding. This interaction enables customers to receive immediate customer service when, where and how they prefer, without logging off the Internet. While billserv.com is initially targeting eCare for companies that utilize its electronic billing solution, eCare can be implemented by nearly any company that has a need for Web-based customer care. billserv.com expects eCare to be widely available in early July.
Alchemy Semiconductor, Inc., an Austin, Texas-based fabless semiconductor company, announces the details of its first Internet Edge Processor, the Au1000, at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, CA. Based on the MIPS32(TM) instruction set (Nasdaq:MIPS) and designed for high performance at very low power, the Au1000 runs up to 500 MHz. Power dissipation is less than a half-watt for the 400 MHz version or more than 900 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS/Watt for an Au1000SOC. Alchemy has also integrated a set of peripherals on the Au1000 targeted at communications market segments whose products operate on the outer edge of the Internet network, such as wireless palm-sized PCs, 3G (third-generation) data devices, VoIP telephony devices and networking products like residential gateways, firewalls and routers.
NICE Systems (Nasdaq:NICE) announced the development of a new business platform and strategy: Customer Experience Management (CEM). By delivering interactions to decision-makers, empowering agents and providing access to real-time interactions, the new platform delivers powerful tools that help organizations listen and respond to their customers. Based on NICE's core capturing capabilities and six initial partnerships announced, the NICE CEM platform represents the next step beyond CRM (Customer Relationship Management), allowing companies to utilize information provided during customer interactions to improve their business and develop a sustainable competitive advantage.
Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq:BRCM), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling high speed broadband communications to and throughout the home and business, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Innovent Systems, Inc., a pioneer in the development and commercial integration of radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits for short-range wireless data communications, including the world's first fully integrated RF transceiver in pure digital CMOS.
NeTrue Communications Inc. (CDNX:NTU.U) is pleased to announce the successful integration of its IPT BackOffice(TM) solution with Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO)2600, 3600 and 5300 router series, to provide a complete retail application for Voice-over IP Service Providers. The integrated solution offers Service Providers a complete turnkey package for the delivery of Voice-over IP services. NeTrue IPT BackOffice incorporates all elements of a VoIP operation support system including routing, billing and customer care management. IPT BackOffice is adding great value to Cisco-based VoIP solutions by providing information for services such as Quality of Service based routing, billing and Service Level Agreements.
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) announced that PRIMUS Australia, a subsidiary of PRIMUS Telecommunications Group Inc. (Nasdaq:PRTL), has selected Agilent Firehunter to measure the quality of its Internet services and to use these measurements to verify precise service-level guarantees for its customers. PRIMUS Telecommunications Group is a global facilities-based total service provider offering data, Internet, e-commerce, Web hosting, enhanced applications and voice services on a bundled basis.
The fourth largest ISP in the Australian market, PRIMUS chose Firehunter to differentiate itself with premium Internet quality-of-service and to respond to growing customer demand for measurable service levels. Firehunter's network capabilities offer management of services, such as dedicated IP connectivity, virtual-private networks (VPNs), voice-over-IP (VOIP), e-commerce, Web hosting,e-mail and news. Firehunter is a comprehensive solution that proactively monitors and manages the real-time performance and availability of individual customers' business-critical Internet services and provides management reporting and drill-down fault localization. The solution's exacting verification capabilities enable PRIMUS to attract customers with enforceable service-level agreements (SLAs).
Artisoft(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:ASFT) announced the release of TeleVantage(R) 3.5, the newest version of its award-winning software-based phone system. With TeleVantage 3.5 small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and corporate branch offices worldwide will benefit from Microsoft Windows 2000(R) compatibility, BRI ISDN support, international language capabilities, IP gateway enhancements and increased application programmability. These new additions will advance global relationships, extend TeleVantage's current Internet offerings and expand third-party development opportunities.
Natural MicroSystems (Nasdaq:NMSS), the technology leader enabling the world's top networking and communication equipment suppliers to build New Network infrastructure and services, announced the expansion of its NaturalEdge(TM) Engineering Consulting Services to facilitate time-to-profit for its rapidly growing number of wireless technology customers.
NMS' customers and partners include a large percentage of top communications equipment providers, such as Sun Microsystems, Lucent Technologies, star*home, a subsidiary of Comverse, Ericsson, and others. Hardware and software technology from NMS serves as the foundation for many of today's next-generation wireless networks and messaging platforms. Increasingly, NMS' customers want access to robust and immediately available wireless consulting services to complement the company's wireless technologies. These new NaturalEdge Services address that requirement on a global basis.
Driving tomorrow's digital communications applications, Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE:TXN) (TI), the world leader in digital signal processing (DSP) and analog, unveiled the first device in its next generation of incredibly power-efficient programmable DSPs. TI introduces the new chip just three months after announcing its revolutionary TMS320C55x(TM) DSP core, which uses advanced power management techniques to shatter the industry's low power records. This first device, the entry point into the C55x(TM) DSP generation, will enable longer battery life, greater functionality and increased channel density to power applications ranging from portable Internet appliances to high-speed wireless communications. (http://www.ti.com/sc/c5510)
GRIC Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:GRIC), the leading provider of multiple value-added Internet services for service providers, including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet roaming, announced it is providing network infrastructure to expand and enhance America Online's (NYSE:AOL) AOLGlobalnet Plus Network internationally for AOL 5.0 users worldwide. IBC has an equity position in the companies mentioned herein. IBC has an equity position in VoIP Telecom, Inc. Please visit our disclaimer at www.ibchannel.com.