The Evolution of International Internet Telephony

Abstract

International Internet Telephony has been evolving since its introduction in 1996. In 1996, the typical player was someone like Delta Three, who used the Internet as a backbone network, used agreements with local ISPs to ?gray-market? terminate traffic in a country, such as Columbia or Israel, and then used a VocalTec type gateway to interconnect the local call with an E&M or R2 type signaling. Voice quality was bad, call set up time interminable, and call completions were limited at best to 10-15%. The only selling point was price. Today, four years later, there is a clear segmentation of models. At one extreme is the extension of the Delta Three approach still being provided by delta Three as well as IBasis and ITXC. This is the ?be everywhere but be shallow? approach. This approach uses the Internet as a backbone and then deals with local players as did Delta Three at the beginning. The other approach is one which integrates IP services. It is an approach characterized by ?be selective but own the IP market? approach. To some degree Net2Phone exemplifies that strategy as does Zephyr, as does many of the would be players such as KPM Qwest, Colt, and Level3.