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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Societe Anonyme/No Pennies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: songw who wrote (79166)	6/11/1999 1:33:00 PM
From: changedmyname	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 119973

More on IDTC: June 11, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Investors Say Net2Phone's Site Offers Hints About Two Deals By JASON ANDERS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION Message-board users say they've discovered evidence of two partnership deals involving Net2Phone, a company that routes telephone calls over the Internet. Net2Phone isn't talking, but at least one of the deals is for real. A spokesman for Sprint confirms that it is testing a service with Net2Phone. Compaq Computer, the other rumored partner, declines to comment. The online chatter on a Yahoo! Finance (quote.yahoo.com) message board dedicated to Net2Phone's parent, IDT Corp., heated up on Tuesday when a user poking around on Net2Phone's Web site (www.net2phone.com) stumbled on a page titled "Welcome to Compaq -- Net2Phone Asia." Moments later, similar pages had been discovered for Canada, Brazil and Latin America. Message-board users pounced on the discovery. "PROOF OF AN ALLIANCE!!!!!!" screamed one message. "We'll be at 40 in two months!" wrote another user, predicting the stock price would double. Just an hour later, with users still excited about the Compaq find, the mood turned to pure frenzy after a participant made another discovery on the Net2Phone Web site: a series of Web pages that detailed a new service from Sprint using Net2Phone's technology. A spokeswoman for Net2Phone, which has filed to go public, declines to comment on the pages the users found, except to confirm that they are "active" pages and weren't built as tests. She says the pages weren't linked off the Net2Phone main page, and could only be found by users who "knew what they were looking for." Discovered The following pages were found by message-board participants. Net2Phone confirms they are "active." Asia Brazil Canada Latin America Sprint Basics A spokesman for Compaq says the computer maker "is not in a position to comment publicly right now concerning Net2Phone." But Joe Tomkowicz, a spokesman for Sprint, confirms that the telephone company has been quietly testing a service called "Sprint Basics" since April that allows users to place telephone calls over the Internet using Net2Phone's technology. "We're in a market trial for this product right now, and I really can't say much more than that at this time," says Mr. Tomkowicz. He says Sprint has promoted the service on a very limited basis through banner advertising on Web sites. The trial is scheduled to run through July, but he declines to comment on whether or not the program would be extended. He also says it is common practice for Sprint to ask companies involved in market trials not to make public comments, but declines to say whether that was the case with Net2Phone. Net2Phone's main product, from which the company gets its name, lets customers use their computers to place telephone calls over the Internet to a phone anywhere in the world. A customer uses his computer's microphone and speakers to conduct the call. Because the calls are routed over the Internet, and not traditional phone lines, there are significant savings -- calls within the U.S. are 4.9 cents per minute, and most international calls are 10 cents per minute. Conventional phone services, at best, charge about 10 cents a minute for within the U.S. International calls can run up to several dollars a minute. The service being offered by Sprint, however, is more in line with Net2Phone's newer product, called Net2Phone Direct. No computer is needed. Customers call an access number, and are then connected to any number they wish, just as with traditional phone cards. Again, the difference -- and the source of the savings -- is that the calls are routed through a computer system and over the Internet.