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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mr.mark who wrote (13946)	2/13/1998 6:56:00 PM
From: Mang Cheng	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 45548

"USA Global Link Purchases IP Telephony Gear" (02/13/98; 5:14 p.m. EST) By Matthew Friedman, InternetWeek In one of the biggest IP telephony deals to date, discount long distance carrier USA Global Link announced on Tuesday that it is purchasing $500 million worth of equipment from 3Com. The deal is part of the carrier's plan to deploy a worldwide IP telephony system called Global InterNetwork with 1,000 points of presence over the next three years. "Our Global InterNetwork strategy is a service strategy and not an enterprise solution," said C. Holland Taylor, USA Global Link's CEO. "Internet telephony is entering a new phase, and the technology has caught up with our business plan." That plan includes the ultimate migration of all of USA Global Link's network traffic to IP networks. "We're building a global IP network," Taylor said. "We'll see a 100 percent move internally, and we'll interface with PSTNs [public switched telephone networks] using the signal protocols of each operator." Analysts see the deal as an important legitimization of voice over IP. The recent entry of players like 3Com has given large carriers like USA Global Link confidence in what many believe is still an embryonic technology. Frost & Sullivan analyst Francois-Eric de Repentigny called the deal a "milestone." "Last year was the year for trials; now we're in a year of deployments," he said. "It shows that carriers and established equipment vendors are taking IP telephony much more seriously. It's a validation of the technology." USA Global Link began building its IP telephony network last year, and it now has 25 points of presence, mainly in northern Europe. Taylor said that he found the high-volume equipment supplier he needed when 3Com announced last month that it was entering the IP telephony market. "We needed a vendor that can keep up, and that we know is going to be around three years from now," he said. techweb.com Mang