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To: djane who wrote (44384)	4/15/1998 4:32:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

Net Telephony Forces Deutsche Telekom Overseas (04/14/98; 5:35 p.m. ET) By Phil Jones, Total Telecom techweb.com Deutsche Telekom launched a preemptive strike against Internet telephony operators threatening its position in the domestic calling market last week, launching a pilot of its T-Netcall service in the United States. The pilot Internet telephony service is expected to last into the summer and will involve at least 1,000 customers in the United States, mostly businesses, said a spokesman for the German telephone company. However, "If there are consumers who are interested, they can give us a call," the spokesman said. Participants in the pilot, which will be used to test marketing and pricing strategies, as well as the Internet telephony technology, will have to follow a complex dialing scheme. They can make calls to 20 countries by dialing a local New York number, entering the destination number, an eight-digit card number, then a four-digit personal ID number. Calls are charged at a per-minute rate that varies according to the destination and is calculated in six-second increments after a minimum 30-second charge. The Internet telephony pilot is not Deutsche Telekom's first overseas experiment. A four-month trial in the United Kingdom was recently completed, as was a technology test in Japan. But the U.S. pilot will extend the company's Internet telephony reach into several new international markets. Deutsche Telekom has also been busy at home, where it conducted an Internet-driven voice and data-pilot service with Deutsche Bank's direct banking subsidiary, Bank 24, and recently announced plans for a "tourist-class" telephone service that will be based on Internet telephony. Still, the U.S. pilot is the most emphatic indicator yet that Deutsche Telekom said it expects to carry the fight to potential competitors at home and abroad by implementing Internet telephony first. "Deutsche Telekom will continue to be the leader in new technology, not just in Germany, but in markets around the world," said Roland Bopp, chairman of Deutsche Telekom Americas. So far, most major carriers have watched as upstarts, such as Qwest and USA Global Link, as well as a new class of telecom service distributors, such as the GRIC Alliance and ITXC, have moved to use Internet telephony against them. The exception is AT&T, which last week announced its own AT&T Global Clearing House service. But Deutsche Telekom's aggressive announcements are prompting traditional carriers into thinking about Internet telephony, said Tom Evslin, founder and CEO of ITXC, in North Brunswick, N.J. The market realized Deutsche Telekom was taking Internet telephony seriously when it bought a 21 percent stake in Vocaltec, the Israeli developer of the original IP telephony gateway technology that now supplies Deutsche Telekom's infrastructure, Evslin said. Deutsche Telekom "has really affected its fellow giant PTTs [Postal, Telegraph & Telephone]," Evslin said. Most traditional telecom carriers are still adopting a defensive stance against Internet telephony, said Evslin, but not Deutsche Telekom. "They've made a decision that they will lead the market," he said. Search Archives Internet telephony has been rapidly emerging into a viable corporate market. Get the latest on the players, the products, and the technology's prognosis. Related Stories: Net Telephony Protest May Jam Federal Switchboards Congressional Group Opposes Net Phone Charges Net Phone Backers Fight New Fees Net Telephony Poised To Connect With Consumers = Link to our tech encyclopedia for more info. Check for HTML text sample HTML sample