TMCnet News
Net2Phone and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico Launch VoIP Telephony Across Entire System Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, Inc. ("Liberty") today announced the launch of residential telephony service to its customers using Net2Phone's (NASDAQ: NTOP) fully managed end-to-end cable VoIP service. Beginning today, "Liberty VoiceLinks" phone service will now be available to nearly 300,000 homes passed in Liberty's franchise footprint.Liberty Voice Links is the first service in Puerto Rico that provides residential phone service through cable TV lines using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology. The service provides an alternative to conventional telephone service allowing customers to make and receive calls to or from any phone around the world in a similar manner to traditional residential phones. VoIP technology allows the customer to benefit from savings compared to the cost of their current phone service, and allows them to use the phone, surf the Internet and watch cable TV services simultaneously without interruptions. Liberty and Net2Phone will host a conference call today at 1:00PM Eastern Daylight Time to discuss the launch details. The call can be accessed via the Net2Phone home page at www.net2phone.com. "We are thrilled to give our customers a true affordable choice for all forms of communication - voice, video and Internet access in one bundled package," said Jose Alegria, General Manager of Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico. "Prior to our launch there were limited choices for customers in Puerto Rico for their communications services. With the roll out of VoiceLinks, customers who sign up for our complete bundled package can save more than $60 a month on their combined voice, video and data services. We look forward to continuing to provide additional value to our customers at affordable prices." Liberty Cablevision is offering its subscribers a choice of five calling plans, with packages starting at $24.95 per month, which includes unlimited local calling and 911 service, discounted long distance calling and 16 premium features at no additional cost. The full-footprint launch comes on the heels of a 1,000-subscriber controlled introduction, where an independent consumer's study rendered a 96% level of customer's satisfaction in quality of service and product offering. "Liberty's telephony rollout across Puerto Rico is a testament to the benefits and success of a hosted telephony solution," said Stephen Greenberg. "Net2Phone's solutions have now been selected by six cable operators in five countries, representing more than 2.3 million homes passed. There is now a groundswell of cable operators that are beginning to make the decision to outsource telephony, and many believe that we are well situated to provide incremental value as a hosted telephony partner and enabler for these operators. " Net2Phone's cable voice platform permits cable operators such as Liberty Cablevision to deploy telephony services easily via a fully outsourced solution, thereby enabling them to offer quality telephony services to their customers, reduce churn, generate incremental revenue and keep CapEx and operating expenses at a minimum. Under the terms of the original six-year agreement, Liberty Cablevision maintains ownership of the customer, service brand, and Tier I customer and technical support, while Net2Phone supports the back office platform, switching and transport, ongoing operations and Tier II+ technical support to deliver a fully managed QoS IP solution. Net2Phone tracks and monitors voice quality and network performance metrics from start to finish and provides the cable operator with a full view into telephone calls routed over its network. Consumers benefit on two fronts: inexpensive stand alone telephony when compared against traditional phone service and savings derived from the video, data and voice triple play in cable TV, high-speed Internet access and telephone services. |