Innovations Bring Communications Service Providers More NGN Peering Options, Improved Service Quality and New Revenue Opportunities

LONDON – April 22, 2009 – Communications service providers in the XConnect Global Alliance program, the largest worldwide ENUM-based IP-peering federation, can now take advantage of a wide range of new enhancements, XConnect, the VoIP and Next Generation Network (NGN) peering and interconnect leader, announced today.

The Global Alliance’s new features add flexibility to XConnect’s core NGN- peering offering, enabling service providers to interconnect with partners they select under the settlement and policy terms they choose. Service providers connect to the Global Alliance via managed private or public IP.

The enhancements XConnect announced today allow Global Alliance members, currently numbering more than 100 service providers, to:

• Utilise policy control to create and manage federations, exchanging voice and multimedia traffic only with peering partners they select. The flexible business models include settlement and settlement-free options and technical policies members require.
• Identify and select interconnection partners, as well as provide access to real-time Quality of Service (QoS) details and advanced reporting through a Web portal.
• Develop new revenue streams through the deployment of new advanced IP services such as video and hi-def voice. Also increase existing revenues via voice termination.
• Peer with Web 2.0 and Voice over IM (VoIM) communities.

“The enhanced Global Alliance will enable more service providers to enjoy the benefits of VoIP or NGN interconnection,” said Eli Katz, CEO and founder of XConnect. “Today’s launch adds a deep layer of Web-based control and policy choices to meet service providers’ emerging needs.”

He added: “Service providers realize end-to-end IP communication not only allows significant transit savings and improved Quality of Service, but also promotes mass-market adoption of new services like high-definition voice and video, IM, and presence. The Global Alliance lets service providers replace tangles of peering arrangements with a neutral, trusted and secure third-party hub that links one to many and provides interworking, security and complex numbering management.”

Alan Duric, CEO of Telio, a Global Alliance member, anticipates several additional benefits. He says: “The new Global Alliance will simplify our interconnection process; reduce our transit charges; and enable us to introduce new, rich multi-modal, real-time communications services, such as our video phone calling with HD voice. It will enable us to raise the user experience to the next level in markets that make the most sense for us. We are excited by the partnering opportunities and the peering competence and flexibility XConnect brings to the table, which enable us to create custom peering relationships with other, comparable networks in Scandanavia and globally."

Details on Features

Features announced today are:

• Private Alliance – an option that allows service providers to create or join peering communities with a subset of other Global Alliance members. The members will make their own policies regarding settlement, ENUM data sharing, types of traffic exchanged, and signaling and media security settings.

• The Global Alliance Community Web portal – a site containing the tools for finding peering partners based on their location, business type and service features supported, and creating and controlling all aspects of their peering policy on a peer-by-peer basis. The portal also offers access to real-time traffic statistics, market intelligence, forums, member messaging and networking tools.

• Free Alliance – an option that allows service providers to exchange voice and multimedia traffic settlement-free, thereby extending the benefits of on-net calling to millions of IP end users worldwide.

• Alliance In and Out
• In – an option for Global Alliance members to earn revenue by receiving inbound traffic from the PSTN into their networks, based on XConnect’s ENUM registry.
• Out – an option that enables Global Alliance members to terminate their outbound traffic via XConnect, based on a standard, per-minute billing model.

• Web 2.0 and Voice over Instant Messaging (VoIM) Peering – an option for service providers to extend subscribers’ free-call reach by peering with IM communities, such as Google Talk™.