GTE Internetworking launches international wholesale Voice over IP (VoIP) service New offer enables "next generation" communications companies to carry their customers' international voice traffic over a

Editor's note:

GTE will be available to discuss Voice over IP in Hall 1, stand number 1130.051 in the USA Pavilion at Telecom '99 in Geneva.

GENEVA - GTE Internetworking today announced its new Voice over IP (Internet Protocol) service. The new service provides high-quality, low-cost wholesale voice transport and termination to international communications companies, Internet service providers (ISPs) and Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs), allowing them to offer customers the ability to send international voice and fax traffic over GTE Internetworking's private, managed IP network.

Voice over IP (VoIP), a technique employing IP gateways that "packetize" a caller's voice and sends those packets over an IP network to the called party's telephone or multimedia PC, gives significant cost savings over traditional telephone calls. The new service, International VoIP Direct, transports traffic over GTE Internetworking's managed IP telephony network, which is built on the company's Global Network Infrastructure (GNI) - not over the public Internet - allowing it to maintain high quality. GTE's GNI is a state-of-the-art, private fiber backbone spanning 17,000 miles in the United States alone, with managed high bandwidth connectivity to Europe, South America and the Far East.

"The market is rapidly evolving toward an IP-based converged data and voice network, and the demand for Voice over IP and enhanced IP services is exploding," said Paul R. Gudonis, president of GTE Internetworking. "We ran extensive trials and tests of our IP telephony network to help ensure that our VoIP service has the highest quality available. This initial service, the first in a series of market-driven VoIP offerings from GTE Internetworking, has performed extremely well in trials with Tiscali, an innovative, nextgen Internet and telephony services provider in Italy."

Ideal for GTE's Business Partners

Internationally, the service is offered as part of Net.Alliance, GTE Internetworking's international business partner program. Net.Alliance is a strategic international network of partners, all top-tier providers in their own markets, that resell a wide range of GTE Internetworking's Internet-based services to consumer and enterprise customers in European, Pacific Rim and South American markets. By leveraging GTE's managed IP network infrastructure, its large customer base and its network management expertise, partners have the unique opportunity to lower their costs and risk while also increasing revenues.

GTE manages voice transport and termination as well as provides integrated billing and settlement services, simplifying and reducing a partner's time to market.

"Working with GTE Internetworking has helped us dramatically reduce our time to market in offering competitively priced international call services to our end customers," said Renato Soru, CEO, Tiscali S.p.A. "This partnership has provided us with immediate access to a reliable global IP infrastructure with minimal investment on our part. Our trial customers have been very pleased with the quality of service we are providing through GTE Internetworking's International VoIP Direct Service."

Technical Details for GTE Internetworking's VoIP

GTE Internetworking's VoIP service is based on open standards for voice compression and interoperability. To provide high quality service for International VoIP Direct and subsequent VoIP offerings, GTE Internetworking has deployed a dedicated, high-quality enhanced IP services network based on Cisco carrier-class IP gateways and gatekeepers. This enables GTE Internetworking to provide local call service to and from over 80 percent of U.S. metropolitan markets, along with managed high-speed IP connectivity to its extensive international points of presence located around the globe. Additionally, GTE Internetworking employs Intelligent Route Diversity ^SM (IRD), a unique technique combining load balancing, automated dynamic least cost routing, and failover to the PSTN. IRD assures carriers the best termination rates along with high reliability.

"Cisco and GTE Internetworking have come together to develop an innovative Voice over IP network that will empower next generation Telcos to realize immediate cost savings while providing the foundation for delivering enhanced IP services today and in the future," stated Kevin Kennedy, senior vice president, Service Provider Line of Business, Cisco Systems.

Availability

International VoIP Direct service is available now internationally to current and prospective Net.Alliance members. It comes with guarantees for quality, reliability and performance, and provides partners with turnkey start-up support. To learn more about GTE Internetworking's International VoIP Direct, visit www.bbn.com/groups/voip.

About GTE Internetworking and GTE Corp.

GTE Internetworking, a unit of GTE Corporation (NYSE:GTE), offers customers, from consumers to Fortune 500 companies, a full spectrum of integrated Internet services using IP networking technologies. GTE Internetworking delivers complete network solutions, including dial-up and dedicated Internet access, high-performance Web hosting, virtual private networks (VPNs), managed Internet security, network management, systems integration, and Web-based application development for integrating the Internet into business operations. GTE is one of the world's largest telecommunications companies and a leading provider of integrated voice, video and data services. Additional information about GTE Internetworking can be found on the Internet at http://www.bbn.com, and about GTE Corp. at http://www.gte.com.

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