No more free rides? What a brilliant, novel idea: Charge for your services!
Two stories, related:
NET2PHONE ELIMINATES FREE MINUTES, SIGNS LIBERTY MEDIA FOR CABLE TELEPHONY
Net2Phone is no longer subsidizing free minutes for its partners and will restrict its own use of free minutes only as a direct promotion tool to gain new customers. Its major partners, MSN and Yahoo, have migrated to a paid model.
Net2Phone also signed a five-year $20 million licensing agreement with Liberty Media and its international cable affiliates covering the use of its core VoIP technology. Licensing its technology marks a new revenue stream for Net2Phone. The company expects to enter into other licensing agreements with additional telcos and broadband providers.
Total Net2Phone paid minutes of use grew to 386 million minutes for the quarter, a 219% increase over the 121 million minutes for the same quarter a year ago and a 30% increase over the prior quarter's 296 million minutes. For its fiscal quarter ended April 30, Net2Phone reported $40.6 million in revenue, a 115% increase over the same time last year and a 17% increase over the prior quarter.
The net loss was $23.9 million or $0.41 per share, before restructuring charges. This quarter, Net2Phone hit breakeven for its phone-to-phone consumer business. The company attributed lower than expected gross margins to an upgrade to its VoIP routing software, which subsequently failed to provide the lowest cost routing.
Net2Phone said the issue was fixed although the impact was significant.
net2phone.com
Net2Phone, June 14, 2001
Earlier this month, Net2Phone launched a service allowing consumers to make telephone calls with a standard phone over broadband IP connections. The new VoiceLine service requires a device that connects a standard phone to a broadband network connection, and a monthly service fee. The VoiceLine service is available for domestic calls as fixed price plans ranging from $9.99 (250 minutes) to $49.99 (1700 minutes) per month. Net2Phone plans to add voice-activated dialing, voice portal and messaging services to VoiceLine in the future.
==========
IDT AND LIBERTY MEDIA FORM CABLE TELEPHONY JOINT VENTURE
IDT and Liberty Media formed a joint venture to make telephony services available to Liberty's international cable affiliates using Net2Phone technology. IDT will provide the telephony termination and infrastructure for the joint venture for a period of five years as well as all of the funding obligations.
libertymedia.com
Liberty Media, June 14, 2001 |
