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Technology Stocks : IDT *(idtc) following this new issue?* -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 613 who wrote (30563)	12/21/2004 2:38:13 PM
From: carreraspyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 30916

it's a good question. there isn't enough to say. idt is hiring its own voip manager to check out profit and loss, network structure, etc., runnng calls over something called UNE-L. UNE-L was more expensive to route calls (if not using voip), so UNE-P was being used. UNE-S actually involves routing calls through the bells. UNE-L involves routing calls over copper wire, with no bell involvement. the only way to make that pay is through voip. The position was listed on the 15th of december. UNE-P allowed competitive carriers to lease the bells' switches to provide services to their subscribers. The recent Supreme Court decision has phased out the use of UNE-P, forcing the competitive carriers to build their own local voice and data switching facilities. Under the UNE-L rules competitive carriers will be able to lease the loop (copper wires and T1 lines -- but not bell other bell infrastructure) at cut-rate prices from the bells. Hence, these competitors must migrate from UNE-P to UNE-L solution. those carriers must set up their own infrastructure along the network. IDT also gets 100% of the tax write-ups available to it from controlling ntop wholly, as ntop starts deployments. the ntop holdings llc agreement whereby idt and liberty held their ntop shares expires december 31. they could have extended it -- liberty got more idt not to, and idt got the writeoffs and total voting control over ntop. so they have it back, and may need to use it -- that's their motivation underneath this i think. ...the other way idt may go is to voip and wi-fi with ntop, etc.,, and the success of that for ntop anyway will depend on scale. liberty simply did this, because it didn't matter to it one way or the other. Liberty's UCOMA still does cable telephony deployments; Liberty's tech officer, tony werner, still heads the new cable telephony committee supposed to work ntop into the market globally. Also Liberty actually has been simplifying its holdings structures; Liberty is doing a lot of gaming with News Corp./Rupert Murdoch. Liberty surprised News Corp. with is switch from owning 9% to 17% of News Corp. It got the shares from Merrill. Yesterday, it came to light that Liberty actually had a second covert deal with Merrill for another 1% -- bring Liberty's ownership of News Corp. to 18%, the max. before a poison pill can go into effect, diluting ownership for both of them. But if those shares are offered to the market via the poison pill, it's conceivable a Liberty ally could come in, et them, and join with Liberty in trying to get control of News Corp. So it's either that, or Liberty wants to get something News has, or it wants to sell News something it has. All of which makes Liberty money. Right now, Liberty is in the cat bird seat. It's becoming an operating company, instead of a holding company. Going back to ntop, Sarah H. answered a question of mine, when someone on the yahoo posted that he spoke to someone in idt's call center, who said they were merging the companies. this was several weeks ago -- before news of idt going to liberty for ntop control. she said it simply wasn't the case that they were merging. but that guy at ntop said they may be merging operations somehow -- meaning voip at idt. i can't carry that thought out to a conclusion. but idt needs to use voip, in the same way the bells do. there isn't any difference essentially, except idt has its own voip company set up.