Nifty Corp, Japan’s largest online information and Internet service provider, is to offer its 2.5 million customers international telephone services through a deal with US-based discount international telecoms reseller RSL Communications and its newly acquired IP telephony subsidiary Jerusalem, Israel-based Delta Three. The agreement will see Nifty, a Fujitsu subsidiary, operating a sales and POP point of presence for the Delta Three IP network. Subscribers will be able to make calls, either from a phone or a computer, to the Nifty site from which the call will be routed onto the Delta Three IP network. Delta translates voice traffic to IP packets using its voice over the Internet protocol (VOIP) technology. According to Delta, the call will then be passed across its own network to its nearest POP to the call destination, where it will again join the telecoms network. Delta Three currently has only 15 POPs worldwide at present although it says this will be up to 50 by the end of the year. In order to fill out the service, Delta Three will therefore also route calls over the RSL Communications network. Delta Three has made much of its ability to offer cheaper international telephone calls by using its IP network and its VOIP technology which opens up IP-based telecom services to users calling from a phone and not a computer. Most IP phone services still use computers as the connection tool. This deal, however, will only pitch the service to subscribers of the Nifty online services. RSL entered into a definitive agreement to increase its equity interest in Delta Three to approximately 95%. Bermuda-registered RSL, headed by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, first bought 51% of Delta Three in July last year for $10m. Financial terms for the latest deal were not disclosed. RSL is paying nothing for the agreement but will be paid a commission on telecoms traffic delivered through the Nifty site. According to the company, the new services should prove attractive to about 10% of Nifty’s customers – about 250,000 subscribers – in the first few years. RSL added that it is close to concluding similar deals with service providers in three or four other countries.
