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France Telecom and NetCentrex Partner for the Forthcoming Launch of 'Service e-telephonie'

Posted on: Monday, 13 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

SAN JOSE, Calif., PARIS and GENEVA, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- France Telecom and NetCentrex(TM) announce the signature of an industrial partnership within the context of the upcoming launch of "Service e-telephonie," a multimedia (voice, data, video) communications solution for enterprises. "Service e-telephonie" will operate on France Telecom and Equant's IP infrastructure, with NetCentrex' IPCentrex(TM) solution at the heart of the deployment.

"Service e-telephonie" brings the two worlds of Internet and telephony together thanks to the combined expertise of France Telecom R&D and NetCentrex in the field of IP technologies, and to France Telecom's experience in enterprise telephony services. It enriches France Telecom's solution range with services that reply to enterprise needs in the private telephony sector.

"Service e-telephonie" is an important innovation which will drive the evolution of telephony usage in the enterprise. In addition to the usual features of classic telephony, it will give each office and each user access to a personalized, upgradeable, global multimedia communications solution which is easily accessible from their PC.

With "Service e-telephonie," France Telecom will host the service features and also ensure interconnection with the public telephone network. "Service e-telephonie" will require no hardware or software investment and will operate on the client's computer network.

"France Telecom's objective is to reply to enterprises' main priorities: optimize productivity, reduce costs, increase flexibility. With "Service e-telephonie," we are going to offer innovative and global services, which integrate voice, data and images. The validation of the technical solution and previsions for return on investment remained the two key elements in deciding to launch a solution dedicated to companies. NetCentrex enables us to take that step, thanks to a competitive, scalable solution which can be tailored to individual needs," explains Jean-Pierre Temime, Executive Vice President of Marketing Business Solution of France Telecom.

For Olivier Hersent, Chairman of NetCentrex, "With "Service e-telephonie," enterprises of all sizes are going to benefit from a wide range of services usually available only to big corporations or companies situated in large industrial estates. IP technology enables all services to be accessible anywhere. Larger companies will appreciate the possibility of managing hundreds of small sites in a homogenous and centralized way, making the rapid introduction of new services much easier and reducing management costs."

An industrial partnership resulting from a close collaboration

For two years, France Telecom and NetCentrex have been carrying out joint experiments related to next-generation hosted IP telephony services. This close collaboration between France Telecom R&D and NetCentrex' technical experts on the one hand, and both companies' marketing teams on the other, enabled France Telecom and NetCentrex to define a functional content and create the architecture for an innovative enterprise IP telephony solution.

In the technological partnership in particular, France Telecom R&D brings expertise in the field of service development for both classic and IP telephony , as well as its validation methods for global telephony systems.

About France Telecom ( http://www.francetelecom.com/ )

France Telecom is one of the world's leading telecommunications carriers, with 113 million customers on the five continents (220 countries and territories) and consolidated operating revenues of 46,6 billion euro for 2002 (22,9 billion euro at June 30th, 2003). Through its major international brands, including Orange, Wanadoo, Equant and GlobeCast, France Telecom provides businesses, consumers and other carriers with a complete portfolio of solutions that spans local, long-distance and international telephony, wireless, Internet, multimedia, data, broadcast and cable TV services.

European leader for telecommunications research and development, France Telecom R&D is responsible for all the R&D activities of France Telecom. France Telecom R&D missions consist in anticipating technological evolutions and usage changes as well as innovating to offer customers the best of existing technologies.

About NetCentrex(TM) (http://www.netcentrex.net/)

NetCentrex(TM) develops next-generation networking products and network-based applications for 3 main markets: business communications, customer interactions and broadband residential communications. NetCentrex' solutions include voice portals, network-based contact centers, voice and video over IP virtual private networks, IP Centrex services, business trunking and residential telephony and video services.

The solutions enable both service providers and enterprises to build converged networks and to deploy advanced, high value-added services. All solutions are built on the same core architecture which is composed of NetCentrex' application softswitch and media server.

Founded in 1998, NetCentrex has over 200 customers worldwide, including Comunitel, Equant, France Telecom, FastWeb, Inclarity, MTU-Intel, Prosodie, Telecom Italia, Telefonica Deutschland, TransTeleCom and Xpedite. International partners include Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Sonus Networks. Leading European and US venture capital firms back the privately held company.

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