ivyNET awarded VoIP contract in Korea
ivyNET Corp IVYN
Shares issued 18,515,389 1999-09-07 close $1.1
Wednesday Sep 8 1999
Mr. Michael Nikiforuk reports
Korea's largest government ministry, the Ministry of Information and Communicationm, has awarded ivyNET's subsidiary, SL Electronics Co. Ltd. and the company's strategic partner, Hansol Telecom Co. Ltd., a tender to unify telecommunications systems and services via voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology throughout the MIC, the MIC's Office of Communications, and its national affiliate, the Korean Postal Bureau. Definitive contracts associated with the award of this tender will be finalized in the coming weeks.
The MIC-NET is an existing nationwide fibre-optic IP network currently used to support internal data communications for the MIC and its affiliate departments, including the National Postal Bureau, with over 3,000 branches throughout Korea. The company's technology will be implemented to enable the MIC-NET to carry high-quality voice traffic over this existing IP data network.
The immediate goal of the MIC is to capture the significant cost savings made available by the migration of voice services onto the MIC-NET, thereby avoiding the costly public switched telephone network (PSTN), where charges are levied not only for long distance calls but for local calls as well. "Immediately, we will reduce annual communication costs from $3.8-million (U.S.) to well below $1.5 million (U.S.)," says Whang Joong Yeon, chief of postal services for the MIC, "hereafter, customers can access professionally managed computer telephony integration (CTI) systems."
"This award is a critical first step in supporting the MIC's plan to implement our VoIP technology throughout the MIC-NET and is a major step in securing ivyNET's beachhead in Korea. ivyNET could not be in a better position to capitalize on the explosive opportunity that exists in the Asian IP telecommunications sector," says Stephen J. Paquette, president and chief executive officer of ivyNET.
The magnitude of this award is underscored by the quality of the nine systems integrators and associated technology companies that were competing for the MIC-NET project. Hansol Telecom Co. was selected the successful candidate among a field of competitors that included LG Group and DaeWoo, two of the largest companies in Korea. Partnered with Hansol Telecom, the company's subsidiary, SL Electronics Co. Ltd., was successful over some of the premier IP telephony technology companies in the world including Lucent Technologies and Natural MicroSystems.
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