BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS (MARCH 8TH 2004) – New Jersey-based Net2Phone and The Cable of St. Kitts have announced a memorandum of understanding to deploy a suite of Net2Phone's VoIP services, including Net2Phone VoiceLine, in St. Kitts.
According to a statement issued by Business Wire, The Cable, the only cable operator in St. Kitts, will offer its customers Net2Phone's VoiceLine residential broadband telephony service over its cable network.
Net2Phone VoiceLine founded in 1995, is the company's SIP-based broadband telephony service, enabling service providers to offer competitive local, long distance and international inbound and outbound phone services with advanced features utilizing their existing infrastructure
The Cable, which offers cable television services to more than 98 percent of the homes and businesses on St. Kitts, will also market prefix dial international services to customers without broadband allowing them to benefit from the cost savings associated with Net2Phone powered VoIP services. Consumers and businesses federation-wide will be able to access The Cable's competitively priced international service by dialing a three digit access code in a similar manner to the 10-10-xxx dial around services in the United States.
All of these services draw on Net2Phone's SIP (Session Initiated Protocol) hosted services platform that allows the development and support of multiple voice applications and back office integration tools all using the same infrastructure. The result is that service providers are able to maximize their telephony revenue by offering more services.
“We could not be more pleased with our relationship with The Cable to deliver affordable quality communications solutions for the people of St. Kitts and Nevis,” said CEO of Net2Phone, Stephen Greenberg.
“While it is our third agreement in the region - after Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico and C&W-owned TSTT - this is far from the last, as we are continuing our Caribbean strategy to empower service providers with value-added VoIP services.”
Under the brand “The Cable Powered by Net2Phone,” Net2Phone VoiceLine will offer The Cable's customers features such as call waiting, caller ID, voice mail and online account management tools as well as competitive international calling plans.
“With the help of Net2Phone, we can now give our customers the triple play of voice, video and data,” said The Cable’s CEO, W.R. Ewing.
“Employing Net2Phone's technology and expertise in our telephony deployment provides us with both speed to market and the ability to deliver multiple affordable telephony services throughout St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Following the execution of the definitive agreement, The Cable expects to deploy the VoIP telephony service and offer prefix dial services by the second half of 2004 throughout the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The Cable recently underwent substantial rebuilding and upgrading, including the provision of a fiber optic ring around the island bringing high speed IP Services within reach of all Cable Television Customers.
As part of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Government’s telecommunications liberalisation policy to reduce the cost to consumers, The Cable was recently awarded a Telecommunications License allowing it to provide a full range of telecommunications services on St. Kitts and Nevis in competition with the incumbent monopoly operator Cable & Wireless (St. Kitts and Nevis) Ltd.
Consequently The Cable has entered into an Interconnection Agreement with Cable & Wireless to enable provision of seamless telephone service between customers of both networks.
