2/23/98 Internet Wk. (Pg. Unavail. Online)
1998 WL 7271391
Internet Week
(c) 1998 Phillips Business Information, Inc.
Monday, February 23, 1998
Vol. 4, Issue: 8
Cisco and GRIC Team up in Interoperability Project Companies Want Initiative to
Boost Global Deployment of IP Telephony
GRIC (formerly AimQuest) and Cisco [CSCO] took steps to shore up
their respective IP telephony operations by teaming up to develop a
joint settlement interface between GRIC's settlement system,
GRICphoneT, and Cisco's IOS software, based on the H.323 multimedia
standard, which is likely to become the global IP telephony standard
this year.
This agreement points toward an emerging industry alliance
involving Lucent [LU] and Siemens [SMAWY] as well, which might
accelerate the process of achieving the goal of global termination for
telephone calls made over Internet.
Such news would be a boon for Internet telephony equipment
vendors, since their equipment would give small ISPs an opportunity to
facilitate international phone calls, the high-ticket item for IP
telephony.
The alliance would also boost competition for marketshare of the
future Internet telephony market, currently dominated by several
companies, most notably by IDT Corp. [IDTC], which is in the process
of deploying its phone centers internationally.
Rapid development of Internet telephony would also be felt by
major telcos, which are poised to lose more than $8 billion through
2001 because of their customers using Internet alternatives instead of
regular telephone lines, according to a research report from Action
Information Services.
GRIC and Cisco
A letter of intent signed by GRIC and Cisco last December and
announced only now reveal that the companies are developing a joint
interface that will allow ISPs buying voice/fax cards for Cisco 3600
series routers to terminate calls into the GRIC network.
"The value of the GRIC relationship to Cisco is that GRIC has an
installed base of customers," says Alistair Woodman, product line
manager for Cisco.
GRIC has over 240 ISP customers in 75 countries and a combined
subscriber base of more than 13 million dial-up users, as well as 20
million corporate users.
For Cisco, this agreement comes only a month after the purchase
of privately held Lightspeed International Inc. of Sterling, Va.,
which at the time was billed as an effort to gain a foothold in the
emerging Internet telephony market.
The future, apparently, is here - the company sees the surge the
market made in a few short months. The development went from "tinker
toy" to DS3 levels in two years, says Woodman.
The Lightspeed solution, when purchased, was targeted at
enterprise and service provider customers. The focus has subsequently
been broadened to include anybody interested in IP services and cost
savings on international calls. The GRIC relationship will allow Cisco
better integration of the existing Lightpeed solutions with the
installed base of GRIC's phone gateways.
GRIC's announcement with Cisco is probably the first in a series.
Lucent has been trailing Cisco ever since the company enabled its
customers to do IP telephony by adding a voice card to the 3600 router
series. In response, Lucent unveiled its Internet telephony server
family. PC-based gateways have interfaces for both T1 and E1 lines, as
well as for analog telephone lines.
"We see it as significant that we are able to team up with the
leaders," says GRIC president Hong Chen. "We also signed letters of
intent with Lucent and Siemens."
GRIC is running trials with Lucent's Internet telephony server,
which it plans to deploy within its own network. Other vendors
manufacturing this equipment are Ascend [ASND] and Nortel [NT]. There
were no announcements of the latter two joining the group at press
time.
Founded in 1994 and privately held, GRIC provides global Internet
roaming, corporate remote access and VPN services on top of IP phone
call termination. One of the other companies providing similar
services is ITXC, headed by former AT&T [T] head Tom Evslin. (Dr. Hong
Chen, GRIC Communications, 408/965-1162, Alistair Woodman, Cisco
Systems, 408/526-5896, Francois de Repentigny, Frost & Sullivan IP
telephony expert, 650/961-9000, Sim Hall, Action Information Services,
703/847-9805)
---- INDEX REFERENCES ----
COMPANY (TICKER): IDT CORP. (IDTC)
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