Voxbone Equips Globally-Local iNum Numbers With High-Definition Voice

IP-to-IP Calls to iNum Numbers Can Be Answered Anywhere and Convey in-the-Room Sound Quality

NEW YORK – Sept. 15, 2009 – Voxbone, a leading provider of international VoIP origination services and telephone numbers to communications service providers, call centers and multinational businesses, today announced that its international, geographically-independent number service, iNum®, now supports high-definition (HD) voice. iNum adds a missing piece – a uniform identifier – to enable HD calling.

As long as both endpoints are HD-enabled, calls to iNum numbers will convey a sound quality that far surpasses traditional circuit-switched telephony.

The new capability, announced at the HD Communications Summit in New York, adds the benefit of in-the-room sound quality to iNum’s location neutrality and cost savings on international calls.

Prefaced with the ITU-assigned 883 code, iNum numbers refer to the Internet in the same way that 44 refers internationally to the U.K. and 1 refers to the U.S. A call to an iNum number is routed first to Voxbone, which carries it over the expensive, long-distance leg of the route before delivering it to the appropriate service provider, which terminates the call to its subscriber.

A high-definition voice signal cannot fit through the frequency constraints of Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) – a fact that limits the HD benefit to end-to-end IP calls. However, most iNum calls should be able to support HD voice because most iNum traffic is transmitted by service providers that have migrated to IP or begun operation as VoIP carriers.

“In equipping our iNum numbers with high-definition voice, we are bringing a key piece – a uniform identifier – to the emerging HD ecosystem,” said Rod Ullens, Voxbone CEO. “Many endpoints and a lot of isolated networks, such as Skype, already support HD, but there needs to be a standard way for any service provider to reach a particularHD endpoint. HD-enabled iNum offers the perfect solution.”

For example, Ullens said: “The HD voice capability enables a global help desk to publicize one ‘local’ number for all English-speaking customers anywhere in the world, another for all Spanish-speaking customers, and so on. The clarity of high definition tremendously helps callers to these numbers, who often are listening in their second or third languages or listening to non-native speakers.”

In another scenario, a call-conferencing provider could use iNum for an internationally “local” access number. In-the-room voice quality frequently has been noted for alleviating “ear strain” and improving attentiveness on long conference calls.

Voxbone is beginning its HD support with the wideband G.722 codec and plans to add other codecs in the fourth quarter of this year.

About Voxbone
Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Voxbone provides worldwide local and toll-free phone numbers over its own private intercontinental VoIP network. The all-IP architecture of the Voxbone core network enables customers to rapidly deploy new communications services with local presence while reducing costs. It delivers high-quality call origination from 48 countries and 4,000 cities, as well as iNum numbers that enable billing as local calls when dialed through participating carriers anywhere in the world. Through its number inventory, network, self-administered provisioning and comprehensive SIP adherence, Voxbone’s global infrastructure enables its customers to expand to international markets quickly and efficiently. Founded in 2002 and privately held, Voxbone is the only carrier licensed in all 27 countries of the European Union. For more information, visit www.voxbone.com.