AT&T launches new Internet Protocol services
NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Reuters) - AT&T Corp., the nation's largest
long distance company, on Thursday unveiled several new services
it hopes will encourage the adoption of Internet Protocol
telephony services.
AT&T introduced AT&T Global Clearinghouse, which will act as a
central point of contact for Internet service providers (ISPs)
who want to provide phone-to-phone IP Telephony services to up to
140 countries worldwide.
IP Telephony services transmit voice traffic over networks
based on Internet standards.
By joining the AT&T Global Clearinghouse, ISPs can avoid the
time and expense of negotiating and managing numerous agreements
with other ISPs, AT&T said.
The Clearinghouse will post the rate each ISP charges to
terminate calls in its country and then offering those rates to
all other ISPs that wish to send calls.
The Clearinghouse also handles the related routing
management, settlements, billing and administration, allowing
member ISPs to save on staff and administration costs, AT&T said.
"AT&T strongly believes that IP is the unifying protocol for
transforming the telecommunications industry worldwide," said
Kathleen Earley, vice president of AT&T Internet Services.
"These actions will help jump-start IP Telephony, which has
enormous potential for networking around the globe. Our goal is
to make voice over IP as easy to use as today's telephone
service," Earley said.
AT&T also launched two trials of Voice over IP Virtual
Private Network (VoIP VPN) service, to be conducted in coming
months. One trial is an internal AT&T test, which will network
corporate locations in six cities worldwide. The second is with a
major multinational financial institution.
Virtual private networks allow companies to transmit
information across a secure location on the Internet.
Also, AT&T and the International Computer Science Institute
will establish the AT&T Center for Internet Research, which will
perform basic research on future Internet architectures. The
Center will be created in association with the University of
California at Berkeley.
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