Israel's Bezeq Launches Net Telephony Pilot Program
September 17, 1998 HERZLIYA, ISRAEL, Newsbytes via NewsEdge
Corporation : Israel has joined the growing
list of countries whose telecommunication
carriers that are offering commercial Internet
telephony services.
In Israel, Bezeq International has started a
commercial pilot of phone-to-phone IP
(Internet Protocol) telephony services, using
VocalTec Communications' Ensemble
Architecture hardware.
According to Bezeq officials, the initial pilot
will offer telephone customers in Israel
access to low cost phone-to-phone calls
over the Internet from Israel to the US.
Dan David, Bezeq's vice president of
engineering, said that the company
concluded that the deployment of the Net
telephony hardware will allow the carrier to
build a more efficient network and expand
the firm's range of services.
Newsbytes notes that the VocalTec
Ensemble Architecture represents the first
open IP telephony platform in the industry to
support the most advanced industry
standards for widescale IP telephony
services.
According to VocalTec, the hardware
includes support for third party accounting,
billing and security systems, and offers a
centralized management system for the
routing of traffic between thousands of
gateways and servers, and millions of
end-user devices, including PC clients,
standard telephones and other
communications devices.
Dr. Elon Ganor, VocalTec's chairman, said
that Bezeq is aggressively pursuing IP
telephony in order to offer its customers
low-cost international calling, as well as
developing a network to support the
enhanced applications of tomorrow.
"The Ensemble Architecture delivers the
immediate benefits of IP telephony, while
providing a strong standards-based
foundation for adopting media rich
applications," he said.
Bezeq's Web site is at
bezeq.co.il .
VocalTec's Web site is at
vocaltec.com .
Reported by Newsbytes News Network,
newsbytes.com . |
