Interoute Launches Voice 'Arena'

LONDON -- Interoute, owner and operator of Europe’s most densely connected voice and data network, today announced the launch of Arena, the first commission-free voice trading exchange for the telecommunications industry.

Designed to make voice trading easier and erode the traditional barriers to market entry, Arena is the latest extension to Interoute’s Virtual Voice Network (VVN), a managed softswitch partitioning and interconnection service that enables operators to enter the voice market quickly without the infrastructure investment.

By logging-on to the Arena web portal, a community of global and national carriers, resellers and ISPs connected to Interoute’s VVN can seamlessly open routes to each other, regardless of their location or the protocol they are using.

While traditional providers of voice exchanges charge a commission on traffic passing through the exchange, VVN customers are only charged for utilising ports on softswitches deployed across Interoute’s pan-European network.

More than 100 customers, ranging from large national carriers such as Indian telecommunications operator VSNL and Czech Telecom through to ISPs and VoIP operators such as Streamdoor, have been using Interoute’s VVN since it launched in May last year. There are now approximately 100 million voice minutes per month running across the network.

James Kinsella, Interoute’s executive chairman, says Arena is changing the traditional model of bilateral voice trading agreements and making the process easier for carriers.

“Carriers, such as VSNL, are increasingly looking at new and innovative ways to enter into international call termination agreements while still having a predictable and manageable cost structure,” says Kinsella.

“Arena eliminates the need for operators to establish multiple interconnection agreements, which can take time and require them to organise circuits, while also increasing the number and range of counterparties they can trade with providing the least cost routes.”

Interoute Telecommunications Ltd.