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 IDT's Net2Phone Improves Voice Quality
CODEC drastically enhanced, delay down, improved clarity
overall, more value-added services to come
Hackensack, NJ -- Oct. 21, 1998 --IDT's (NASDAQ: IDTC) Net2Phone
today announced that it has improved voice quality of its Net2Phone
Direct (phone-to-phone) Internet telephony service.
Thanks to improvements in CODEC technology, reduced delay,
and reduced network bandwidth utilization, the quality of IDT's
Internet-based phone calls have increased drastically.
The upgrade has also reduced the delay previously associated
with Internet
phone calls by shaving another 40 milliseconds off the delay.
In addition,
the Company has reduced network bandwidth utilization with improved
voice
activation detection with smoother transitions from voice to
silence, which
improves quality and increases bandwidth availability on the
Company's
network.
But voice is not the only improvement that has been made to
the Net2Phone network. Phone calls that are routed over IP networks
allows for more flexibility, including the addition and integration
of value-added services. Net2Phone's mission is to offer multiple
voice and data services that provide a complete set of communications
services - other announcements in that regard will be forthcoming.
"We're extremely excited about these upgrades, because
it enables us to
close the gap between regular phone service and our Net2Phone
service,
making it virtually imperceptible when placing international
phone calls,"
said Howard Jonas, Chairman and CEO of IDT. "This helps
us in implementing our goal of offering top-quality multiple
voice and data services over one network."
The CODEC upgrade, which has received a high MOS (Mean Opinion
Scores for rating codecs) for the phone-to-phone service, is
currently in progress and is expected to be completed by next
week. CODEC is the voice compression algorithm which takes the
voice from the public switched telephone network and squeezes
it into fewer bits for transmission over the Internet, which
utilizes less bandwidth on the network. The Company's PC-to-phone
product, Net2Phone, will also be upgraded with similar enhancements
in the near future.
IDT is a leading emerging multinational carrier that combines
its position
as an international telecommunications operator, its experience
as an
Internet service provider and its leading position in Internet
telephony to
provide a broad range of telecommunications services to its
wholesale and
retail customers worldwide. The company provides its customers
with
integrated and competitively priced international and domestic
long
distance, pre-paid calling cards, Internet access and, through
its Net2Phone product offerings, Internet telephony services
including Net2Phone Direct, Net2Fax, and Click2Talk. For more
information about IDT's Internet telephony services, please
visit www.net2phone.com.
Except for historical information, all of the expectations
and assumptions
contained in the foregoing are forward-looking statements involving
risks
and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual
results to
differ materially from such forward-looking statements, include,
but are not
limited to, the competitive environment for Internet telephony,
changes of
rates of all related telco rates and services, legislation that
may affect
the Internet Telephony industry, IDT 's ability to operate the
services
described on a large scale commercial level. For additional
information
regarding these and other risks associated with the Company's
business
refer to the Company's reports filed with the SEC.
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