asterisk users - Apr 2004 - SingTel ready to break into web telephony

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/05/1081017104255.html 


 


 


SingTel ready to break into web telephony

April 6, 2004

 

 

 

 




 

 

Singapore Telecommunications is teaming up with US internet phone
start-up SIPphone to offer low cost, and in some cases free, phone
services over the web.

The deal, expected to be announced today, will allow SIPphone - started
by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson - to route calls anywhere in the
world over SingTel's global phone network. SingTel and SIPphone, based
in San Diego, initially will market the service in Asia and try to
strike deals with other regional internet service providers to sell
packages of phone services.

But the SingTel-SIPphone deal's reach will be global: it will allow
anyone using special SIPphone gear, such as one of the company's phones
or adaptors, to use a new type of SingTel calling card to place calls
cheaply from anywhere, to anywhere.

Customers could buy the calling cards online, not just in Asia, when the
new service starts later this month, said Richard Tan, SingTel's
vice-president of international carrier services. 

SingTel owns Optus and has sizeable stakes in telecom firms in other
countries including India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. 

Until SIPphone linked up with SingTel, SIPphone users could use the
service only by calling other people with one of the company's phones or
adaptors, which plug into a high-speed internet outlet. Those calls are
free, not counting the cost of the SIPphone hardware. 

SIP stands for session initiation protocol, the internet standard the
technology uses. 

The partnership is another sign of the power of "voice over internet
protocol", or VOIP, technology, which is disrupting the business models
of major phone companies and threatening to slash their profits. The
technology transforms a voice on the phone into digital packets, which
then travel over the web and are reassembled at their destination.
Because they are carried over the internet, and not a traditional phone
line, calls are either free or heavily discounted because they avoid
many regulatory fees.

By using VOIP, "the difference between local and long-distance [calling]
evaporates", said Mr Robertson.

 

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