AimQuest/GRIC Alliance Teams Up With Lucent Technologies to Offer Internet Telephony

Business Wire, August 19, 1997

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 19, 1997--Milpitas, Calif.-based AimQuest(TM) Corp. announced today it will pilot the Lucent Technologies Internet Telephony Server-SP over the GRIC(TM) (Global Reach Internet Connection(TM)) network of nearly 150 Internet service providers (ISPs) and telcos worldwide.

Lucent's Internet Telephony Server-SP (for service providers) enables consumers and businesses to make phone-to-phone and real-time fax-to-fax calls over the Internet. The next release of the product will support PC-to-phone, phone-to-PC and PC-to-PC communications over the Internet infrastructure.

With the servers, service providers are able to provide new revenue-generating, voice-over-the-Internet services to enhance their current offerings. AimQuest provides scalable, high performance, fault-tolerant Internet transaction settlement system and service for all GRIC members.

According to predictions by market research firms IDC, Forrester Research, Frost & Sullivan and the Aberdeen Group, the Internet telephony market is expected to be deployed by 70% of Fortune 1000 companies by the year 2000, and by the same time frame, is expected to reach 8.5 billion minutes of use in the U.S. and four billion minutes of use internationally.

GRIC is the leading network of value-added Internet communications services, offering cost-effective global roaming, telephony, faxing, VPDN (Virtual Private Dial-In Network) and other services through the GRIC worldwide network of ISPs and telcos.

"We are very excited about working with AimQuest to help make quality voice-over-Internet a world-wide reality," said Gerald Butters, Lucent Technologies' president of Network Systems for North America. "AimQuest provides its members a critical clearinghouse service, making it easier for them to quickly enter this lucrative new market. Combining their services with Lucent's useful, innovative Internet technology will mean more and better services for GRIC members and, most importantly, their customers."

"Each ISP and telco member of the GRIC Alliance, thanks to this technology from Lucent, will have the opportunity to provide visible savings on phone bills for millions of their consumer and corporate customers worldwide," added Chris Hrut, director of business development of AimQuest Corp. "It makes a lot of economic sense to pick up a phone, dial a short access code and reach anyone in the world at substantially lower costs by using the Internet as the backbone for the call."

Lucent's Internet Telephony Server-SP is a hardware and software solution that uses the Bell Labs elemedia(TM) software speech coder to provide high-quality service on standard Internet connections. The product is interoperable with all major switch vendor products and supports open APIs to facilitate development of additional services. Initially, two servers are needed to complete an Internet telephony call: one near the central office where the call originates and another near the termination point.

With Lucent's server as the standard in the GRIC network, member service providers would be able to take advantage of AimQuest's clearinghouse service to even greater avail. For example, a service provider with an originating server in one country can make an agreement with another service provider for terminating service in another country, enabling them both to offer a wider scope of international Internet telephony service to its customers. This arrangement will help remove the roadblock of building separate infrastructure as well as to help guarantee interoperability, creating an environment for success.

The GRIC Alliance today has nearly 150 member ISPs and telcos offering over 1,300 POPs (points of presence) in 152 countries, for some 13 million dial-up users and 20 million corporate users. GRIC ISPs and carriers provide nearly 80% of the Internet services in many of their respective countries.

"Internet telephony is one of the most significant advances to the Internet since the World Wide Web," according to Dr. Hong Chen, founder, president and CEO of AimQuest Corp. "Providing this exciting new capability for the members and subscribers of the GRIC network is another example of the technological and market leadership demonstrated by the GRIC Alliance."

Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. For more information about Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., visit the corporate website at http://www.lucent.com.

AimQuest and the GRIC Alliance offer ISPs and telcos a reliable and long-term partner in the development and domination of the $63 billion Internet communications market. Close to 150 of the world's largest ISPs and telco (carriers) belong to the GRIC Alliance, including NETCOM, Prodigy, Singapore Telecom, NEC, Fujitsu, KDD, Malaysia Telecom, Finland Telecom, Korea PC Telecom, FranceNet, Cybernet AG, Hong Kong Telecom, Samsung, Hyundai, Chungwha Telecom, Telstra and DTI Mitsubishi.