ITT Kokusai Den Den Co Ltd, a Japanese telecom service provider, and Arbinet, a New York-based solutions provider for international carriers, say they have deployed a new telecommunications service in three major cities in Japan: Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The companies assert that the service is the first commercial implementation of voice over IP (VOIP) in Japan that transports domestic and international voice and fax calls over the OCN, which is the Japanese version of a managed internet. The engine driving the service is Arbinet’s CLN equipment, an industrial PC-based switching system. ITT has franchised the Voice and Fax over OCN service, selling it directly to mid-size corporations and retailers in Japan. The high cost of long distance calls when using the traditional PSTN in Japan has created an opportunity, and ITT now has the technology to offer discounted intra-Japan traffic, while maintaining the high quality standards demanded by Japanese consumers, says Alex Mashinsky, chairman and founder of Arbinet. Using the CLN’s least-cost routing capabilities, ITT will extend the service to the international arena using private lines and/or managed internet during the first quarter of 1998. International calls will be automatically sent to the CLN, which will terminate the call at the lowest cost to ITT. To facilitate international call routing, ITT has agreed to cross-connect its network to the Arbinet Global Clearing Network and to provide origination and termination for voice, fax and data services to Arbinet’s existing world-wide carrier partners, which include 7 of the top 40 carriers.
