Increased Network Monitoring Capabilities

General Telecom customers now have around-the-clock, real-time network monitoring coverage! Our Golden, Colorado Network Operations Center (NOC) now provides proactive network monitoring and alarm response services on a 24/7 basis.

Customer-initiated pager calls placed outside normal business hours are now being routed to our NOC and handled by NOC support staff who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And, as part of our plan for continuous service improvement, we will soon be eliminating the use of pager numbers, so calls that you place outside normal hours will be routed directly to a technician at our NOC, giving you instant access to assistance. This gives customers the assurance that any network issues will receive the rapid attention of a highly qualified technical staff.

For more information or if you have any questions about this expanded service, please contact General Telecom Customer
Service at 646-328-5800, option 1.

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Wholesale VoIP Solutions

New Global Telecom - NGT (General Telecom’s owner) is now directly engaged in the VoIP marketplace, providing services to business customers through its own Applications Server, facilitating the company’s rapid entry into the VoIP market.

“This strategic initiative represents a solid investment and financial commitment to VoIP by our organization, including research and development,” said Rich Grange, Chief Executive Officer of NGT and General Telecom. “It also represents our realization of the significant growth of VoIP in both the wholesale and retail marketplaces.”

As part of its commitment to VoIP, NGT has formed an alliance with a Denver, Colorado-based firm as a partner knowledgeable in the design and delivery of VoIP services. NGT is currently delivering Hosted IP PBX and Class 5 feature services to business customers on a Broadsoft Applications Server utilizing SIP protocol. NGT plans additional wholesale services that benefit carriers seeking entry into the VoIP marketplace - and General Telecom will benefit directly from NGT’s experiences in these VoIP endeavors. If you have questions or an interest in wholesale VoIP services, please contact engineers@ngt.com.

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General Telecom on the Move

General Telecom has signed a lease that clears the way for the relocation and expansion of its Golden, Colorado Network Operations Center and offices. The move, slated for December, triples the space occupied by our current operations in Golden. The NOC and all staff will be moving from 1600 Jackson St. to the new Clear Creek Square commercial building at 600 12th St. in downtown Golden.

Golden, Colorado NOC and Offices

“It’s a sign of our commitment to our customers and to the communities in which we do business,” said Brian McClintock, Chief Operating Officer of NGT and General Telecom. “We’ve rebounded from the telecom downturn to become the leading network management and outsource switching management company in the country. We look forward to taking our place in the finest corporate facility in Golden.”

Clear Creek Square is the largest downtown redevelopment project in a city of Golden’s size. General Telecom’s space on the first floor of the building has been custom designed to accommodate its world class NOC. Customer Service, Operations, Sales and other staff will work on the second floor of the building. Taken together, General Telecom and Pentax have leased almost the entire Clear Creek Square building, which is located in downtown Golden, less than 20 minutes from Denver, Colorado.

General Telecom has also opened its new business and sales office in New York City. The office is in the historic Trinity building at 111 Broadway. If you wish to tour any of our sites, please contact sales@gentel.net.

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Customer Referral Program

The General Telecom sales lead generation program encourages and rewards customers for generating new business leads. It also helps grow the Global Village — where customers can support their strategic expansion into new and existing markets and fully exploit opportunities. Building the Global Village in turn supports the successful launch of new products and services such as VoIP Direct, Virtual Local Loop and Account Management services.

How does the referral program work? Simply provide a referral who becomes a contracted General Telecom customer, and you will receive additional free switch ports (equivalent to the same number initially subscribed to by your referral) free for one month. Provide more than two customer referrals, and receive free one-on-one systems training with a General Telecom staff member/technical expert. And any customer whose cumulative number of referral ports exceeds 100, will receive an all-expense paid trip to the General Telecom Loop-Around Event of his or her choice anywhere in the world!

For more information, contact us at 303-229-1025 or visit the General Telecom website at www.gentel.net/referral.

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Marketing Program — Play The Game!

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Editorial/Issues

“Beyond Hype —VoIP Adoption and the International Long-Distance (ILD) Carrier”

General Telecom’s research and development team, lead by Mark Bolton - Director of Product Development, is preparing a paper for presentation at the Pacific Telecommunications Conference, January 2004 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Below please find an excerpt:

What is the state of VoIP adoption for ILD Carriers?

We are at ‘stage 1’ of a potentially rapid global market adoption of VoIP technology. Although VoIP has been talked about in the telecom industry for quite some time, we are now seeing meaningful investment driven by growing demand. The global price pressures on international long-distance (ILD) have accelerated the adoption of VoIP technology and ILD now represents the largest share of deployed VoIP networks worldwide.

TeleGeography reports show the growth of global VoIP traffic rose from 7.5 million minutes in 1997 to over 18,475 million minutes in 2002. Looking ahead, Probe Research projects a cumulative annual growth rate for the VoIP market of over 160% though 2007, and Dittberner Associates, Inc. (DAI) forecasts Softswitch and Media Gateway spending to exceed US$1.7 billion in 2004. In the DAI study, which was an update to their Fall 2002 study of Next Generation Networks, DAI documented dramatic changes in carrier behavior in the brief period from 2002 to 2003.

Practically all carriers use VoIP alternative routes to complete calls. These routes originally served as low-cost augmentation routes, mixed into a multi-carrier least cost routing (LCR) strategy to increase margins, but due to varying quality concerns, VoIP routes were never considered a dominant component. As quality has dramatically improved with the evolution of the technology, VoIP routes are taking on an increased role and are sometimes used as primary routes today. In addition, VoIP technology has given rise to premise-based solutions for retail commercial customers, such as Hosted IP PBX and IP Centrex offerings.

Ultimately, ILD carriers will be forced to make a key strategic decision in the face of an increasing volume of available bandwidth driven by VoIP deployment — are ILD carriers prepared to cannibalize legacy network to stay in this game and retain market share? Those ILD carriers that adopt / support new strategies to leverage the opportunities of VoIP — such as IP-to-IP calling communities, and new access methods including end-user applications via broadband and the Internet — put themselves in a position to execute a winning strategy.

“The impact of VoIP technology adoption on ILD carrier and wholesale business models could be profound,” says General Telecom’s Mark Bolton — Director of Product Development. “As more carriers adopt and deploy this technology, costs will be driven down further, and new applications will stimulate growth in LD and ILD traffic. There’s no doubt in my mind that every carrier will soon need to be equipped to do business in a hybrid TDM / VoIP environment.”

The General Telecom paper and presentation at PTC’04 will cover the following topics:

• Why will ILD Carriers move to VoIP?
• When will ILD Carriers move to VoIP?
• How will ILD Carriers incorporate VoIP Services into existing ILD platforms?
• How will ILD Carriers operate VoIP Technology?
• Case study
• Conclusion

If you plan to attend PTC’04 and would like more details regarding our presentation or if you would like to receive a copy of the final paper, please contact solutions@gentel.net. If you would like to learn more about General Telecom’s VoIP Services, visit www.gentel.net/innovations.

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Customer News
General Telecom Maintains Power During Largest Blackout In U.S. History

While power transmission operators, government officials and experts were scrambling to find out the cause of the huge August 14th power outage affecting much of the Northeast and upper Midwest, General Telecom maintained its switches at normal operating levels. This included 100% operating status for the company’s switches at 60 Hudson Street and 75 Broad Street in New York City, its switches in Los Angeles and Miami, as well as the company’s Network Operations Center (NOC) in Golden, Colorado.

Some General Telecom customers did experience service outages, affecting approximately 8% of total customers' traffic capacity. These outages were due to failures and interruptions in third-party circuit facilities and carrier networks as well as the loss of AC power at the 60 Hudson Street switch site resulting from generator fuel storage restrictions imposed by the City of New York. General Telecom worked diligently to isolate these failures on behalf of our customers and to assist in restoring full service.

How did we maintain 100% operating status on the company’s switches? Through a combination of generator and battery power back-up facilities, 24/7 technical manpower support, and rigorous pre-existing emergency procedures. With more than 100 international carriers relying on our switches and NOC, our emergency power back-up systems and dedicated, experienced staff helped ensure the highest level of service possible for our customers.

"We have been impressed with General Telecom's network operation and with their readiness to help us meet our own performance goals," said Richard E. Pino, Chief Financial Officer at Frontline Communications International, Inc., a General Telecom client based in New York City. "The unfortunate U.S. power blackout has certainly reaffirmed the decision to conduct our business with General Telecom."

Read more about this outage in General Telecom’s press release at www.gentel.net/news/press.

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Building the Global Village

How reliable are your connections to the global marketplace? Join the General Telecom Global Village and find a better way to quickly and easily find, sell and trade routes with no transaction fees. You’ll also benefit from: faster time-to-market; improved customer relationships; access to General Telecom’s experienced and dedicated technicians; lower costs; increased revenues; and a wide range of services and solutions. Learn more at www.gentel.net/globalvillage.

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GenTel Website Launch

We’ve just launched the new General Telecom website, with ongoing enhancements to the MyGenTel Customer Resource Center and the online Global Village. New improvements you’ll see on the site include an updated look & feel, a more intuitive navigation scheme and additional content. Take a look at www.gentel.net and www.gentel.net/mygentel. Existing customers have all received new logins and passwords for MyGenTel and the Global Village together with their Global Village passports. If you need additional accounts or need to have your password changed, please contact sales@gentel.net.

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Events
NYC Loop-Around Event Success!

Our most recent Global Village Loop-Around Event on August 12th in New York City was a tremendous success! Tim Bradley, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for General Telecom, says that, based on feedback he received from attendees, this was not only the largest but it was also the most successful Loop-Around Event to date.

“It’s been such a success that we’ve decided to increase the number of face-to-face Loop-Around Events to at least four per year,” said Bradley. “Our customers are finding out just how fun and profitable these events can be, and it actually helps them realize that we have many of the same goals and priorities as they do, such as looking for ways to increase revenues while decreasing costs.”

Interested in becoming a part of this dynamic global telecom community? All customers of General Telecom are eligible to join the Global Village and take part in special events such as Loop-Around Events, to facilitate transactions and meet other customers. It’s all part of the Global Village experience, enabling the buying, selling and trading of routes, bypassing local loops and with no transaction fees. But first, you have to get your passport! To find out more about getting a Global Village passport, call 303-239-1025 or email us.

Thanks to those who attended the NYC Loop-Around Event. The next chance to co-mingle with our carrier community will be coming this fall at CompTel, Oct 7-10th in Orlando, FL.

For more information, please contact sales@gentel.net.

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Upcoming Events

General Telecom will be attending the following events and conferences:

If you’d like to meet with General Telecom at any of these shows, please send an email to sales@gentel.net, or call General Telecom at 303-239-1025.

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In The Loop Q & A
Expert answers to customer questions

Why is VoIP technology suddenly so great?

As our cartoon illustrates in the Editorial Issues section, there's been a lot of hype surrounding VoIP over the last several years. But we're showing our customers that real changes in the industry - more applications, greater volumes of data traffic, meaningful investment driven by growing demand, and global price pressures on international long-distance - are building a solid foundation for the rapid global market adoption of VoIP technology.

While more work remains to be done to improve QoS issues and develop common protocols and standards, carriers and network management providers are now leveraging VoIP, passing the savings along to their customers, and driving even greater demand for the technology. And, by using General Telecom's VoIP Direct service, even smaller VoIP carriers can now tap into the TDM-based carrier customer base.

You say that the Global Village is a zero transaction fee zone. How is this possible?

Yes, it's true that the transaction Global Village is a zero transaction fee zone for General Telecom customers. For no charge, General Telecom will connect two customers that want to buy and sell from one another if they are housed in one of our strategically located switch partitioning hubs in New York, Los Angeles or Miami. This is true whether for switch partition, VoIP Direct or co-location customers - all General Telecom customers receive the benefit of the Global Village. If the carriers are in different switch sites, there may be nominal cross-country transport fees, but otherwise, Looping-Around to other carriers in General Telecom's switch sites is virtually free.

The "zero transaction fee zone" is possible because it benefits our customers. How? By easily bringing together those who are seeking routes, as well as those offering routes, resulting in access to more carriers in more markets. The Global Village makes our customers more productive and profitable. And if it benefits our customers, ultimately, it benefits General Telecom by attracting more customers and building an even stronger Global Village.

In each issue of In The Loop, experts will answer your questions about emerging technologies and tools that can help our customers exploit the global marketplace. This kind of feedback is invaluable in helping us understand your needs and concerns, and so we can continue to innovate the services you need to succeed. If you have a question, please write us at solutions@gentel.net.

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Telecom Tip of the Month

You can access carriers in any of General Telecom’s switch sites.

General Telecom’s switch sites in New York, Los Angeles and Miami are interconnected by high-capacity OC-3 infrastructure. This means that if you are doing business at any one of our switch sites, you are effectively present at all our switch sites. You have access to the entire Global Village of carriers in the General Telecom community, so your choices for economic route selection and your ability to offer routes to other carriers are deeper than you might imagine.* Take advantage of the Global Village to maximize opportunities for your business — across the entire General Telecom customer network!

*please note: Loop-Arounds that cross the OC-3 will have nominal transport fees.

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