Skype Signs Four Carrier Deals

LUXEMBOURG -- Skype Technologies S.A., the Global Internet Telephony Company that offers consumers the ability to make free superior quality voice calls using their Internet connections, today announced agreements with COLT, iBasis, Level 3, and Teleglobe to provide call termination services worldwide. The agreements are in place in preparation for SkypeOut, a soon-to-be-launched pre-pay service that allows people to call any telephone number in the world from anywhere in the world using the Skype software.

“These companies are visionary in recognizing that terminations to the legacy public telephone network can be expanded with the advent of Internet telephony and the global proliferation of broadband,“ said Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s CEO and co-founder. “We will now move quickly and offer SkypeOut calls to landline and mobile phone numbers around the world.”

“More than 7 million people in over 170 countries have joined Skype since the company launched its Internet telephony software last year, and the company averages more than 400,000 active users at any point in time,“ said Sureel Choski, president of softswitch services for Level 3. “By any measure, that is a significant accomplishment, and a testament to the quality of Skype’s offering and the inherent advantages of Voice over IP. We believe we deliver superior value and experience to our termination customers, and we look forward to supporting Skype on this important initiative.”

“We carefully evaluated our options and chose companies that give us a good global reach across the US, Asia and Europe and will provide a balance of trust, competitive pricing and quality-of-service for SkypeOut users,“ said Zennstrom.

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