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Net2Phone
to Provide Cable Telephony Services for Pan-European Conglomerate
- Altice One Selects Net2Phone to Market Cable Telephony Services
- Showcases international expansion of Net2Phones PacketCable-compliant
solutions
Newark, NJ and Luxembourg - March 23, 2004 - Net2Phone Cable Telephony,
LLC, (NCT) a wholly owned subsidiary of Net2Phone (NASDAQ: NTOP),
and Altice One, a cable conglomerate and consolidator representing
more than 500,000 homes passed, today announced that they have signed
a binding term sheet, providing for the deployment of VoIP services
by Altice over its existing cable infrastructure in Brussels, Belgium;
Strasbourg area and Mulhouse, France; and Luxembourg, utilizing
Net2Phones outsourced cable telephony solution. Net2Phones
cable voice platform utilizes Cable Labs DOCSIS architecture and
permits cable operators like Altice to deploy toll-quality residential
telephone service over their existing cable infrastructure.
The parties are simultaneously working on a Definitive Agreement
as well as systems engineering and planning. Altice will then deploy
cable telephony service beginning in the fall of 2004 in all three
markets (Belgium, France and Luxembourg).
Partnering with Net2Phone for our telephony deployment will
help us offer a strong triple-play service to key markets we serve:
cable television plus high-speed Internet access plus phone
service. In turn, that bundled offering will bring competitive advanced
services to our customers, said Patrick Drahi, CEO of Altice.
This agreement with Altice is the next big step for Net2Phone
as we advance toward our goal of becoming the turnkey voice solution
for cable operators worldwide, said Stephen Greenberg, CEO
of Net2Phone. We are extremely pleased that Altice has elected
to partner with Net2Phone to provide telephony services to its customer
base, and we look forward to additional growth in Europe, as we
continue to grow our cable telephony business.
Greenberg continued, Weve seen enormous success in
VoIP internationally over the years, and this deal is a testament
to the demand for telephony options in Europe. The international
opportunity for cable telephony is enormous, and nobody is better
positioned to capitalize than Net2Phone.
Through the Net2Phone Cable Telephony model, Altice maintains ownership
of the customer, service brand, and Tier I customer and technical
support, while Net2Phone supports the back office Packet Cable infrastructure,
switching and transport, ongoing operations and Tier II+ technical
support to deliver a fully managed Quality of Service (QoS) IP solution.
Net2Phone tracks and monitors voice quality and network performance
metrics from start to finish and will provide Altice with a full
view into telephone calls routed over its network. Altice customers
will benefit from savings compared to the cost of their current
phone service, in addition to receiving a bundled offering of cable
TV, high-speed Internet access and telephone services.
About Altice One
Altice One is a European Cable Venture whose purpose is to acquire,
expand and consolidate cable clusters in Western Europe. At the
end of 2002, Altice acquired Est Videocommunication, the leading
cable operator in eastern France. Est Videocommunication provides
Analogue TV, Digital TV and Broadband Internet to more than 180,000
RGUs. For more information about Est Videocommunication, visit http://www.estvideo.com/.
At the end of 2003, Altice acquired Coditel Brabant, the cable operator
of the town of Brussels, and Coditel SA, the cable operator of the
town of Luxembourg. Coditel provides Analog TV and Broadband Internet
to more than 190,000 RGUs. For more information about Coditel, visit
http://www.coditel.be
and http://www.coditel.lu.
About Net2Phone Cable Telephony, LLC
Net2Phone Cable Telephony (NCT) develops, integrates and manages
an outsourced customizable platform to provide cable operators with
the tools they need to offer high-quality voice solutions over their
current cable infrastructure. The NCT solution complies with cable
industry standards and reduces the costs and time to market associated
with building a proprietary cable telephony service, thereby allowing
cable operators to effectively compete with other established telephony
providers.
About Net2Phone
Net2Phone is the only provider of PacketCable, SIP and wireless
VoIP solutions in the world. As leaders in enabling telecom service
providers and cable operators with turn-key hosted VoIP telephony
services, Net2Phone has routed billions of retail VoIP minutes globally,
servicing more than 100,000 users in the US as well as hundreds
of thousands of more overseas. Net2Phones hosted SIP platform
provides partners with residential broadband telephony, calling
cards, prefix dialing and enterprise services in over 100 countries.
Net2Phones PacketCable platform provides cable operators with
the ability to deliver a primary line replacement service with guaranteed
QoS and features such as E911. Traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol
NTOP, Net2Phone's strategic partners and investors include Liberty
Media Corporation (NYSE: L; LMC.B) and IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT;
IDT.C). For more information about Net2Phone's products and services,
please visit www.net2phone.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended,
and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.
These forward- looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
and actual results could differ materially from those discussed
in the forward-looking statements. For this purpose, any statements
contained in this press release that are not statements of historical
fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Factors which
may affect the Company's results include, but are not limited to,
the Company's ability to expand its customer base, the Company's
ability to develop additional and leverage its existing distribution
channels for its products and solutions, dependence on strategic
and channel partners including their ability to distribute the Company's
products and meet or renew their financial commitments, the Company's
ability to address international markets, the effectiveness of the
Company's sales and marketing activities, the acceptance of the
Company's products in the marketplace, the timing and scope of deployments
of the Company's products by customers, fluctuations in customer
sales cycles, customers' ability to obtain additional funding, technical
difficulties with respect to the Company's products or products
in development, the need for ongoing product development in an environment
of rapid technological change, the emergence of new competitors
in the marketplace, the Company's ability to compete successfully
against established competitors with greater resources, the uncertainty
of future governmental regulation, the Company's ability to manage
growth, obtain patent protection, and obtain additional funds, general
economic conditions and other risks discussed in this Report and
in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. All forward-looking statements and risk factors included
in this document are made as of the date hereof, based on information
available to the Company as of the date thereof, and the Company
assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement or
risk factors.
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