Ekonom has selected New Global Telecom's IPTS as a managed wholesale VoIP solution. NGT and Ekonom worked closely to engineer and develop a product customized to fit the specific needs of the North American IP communications market. The result is a landmark service offering for businesses and individuals, delivering specific advantages for communities with voice and data transactions between the U.S. and Mexico. The EKOFON Digital Telephony service enables its users to realize the true benefits of a voice-over-IP, a revolutionary digital telephony technology. To read the full case study, please click here.

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Business Week IPTS Services
Prepaid Press International Terms
FatPipe A Good Host (Note: the Nov issue will be on their website by Nov 25th)
Denver Business Journal Business Benefits of VoIP

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Mark your calendars! General Telecom's corporate headquarters in Golden, CO will be moving into its new Clear Creek Square facilities at 600 12th St. on December 15th. The relocation which includes an expansion of the 24x7 Network Operations Center will triple the amount of space that General Telecom occupies in Golden.

The Clear Creek Square office space has been custom designed to accommodate General Telecom's world class Network Operations Center on the first floor. Customer Service, Operations, Sales and other staff will work on the second floor of the building. The building is situated in the heart of Golden approximately 20 minutes from Denver, and across the street from nationally known Coors Brewing Co. We welcome customer visits, and would gladly provide a tour of our world-class NOC once we are moved. To arrange a visit, please contact sales@gentel.net.

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Enterprises from all industry sectors are migrating to VoIP telephony at a rapid (and increasing) pace. Why is end-user adoption of VoIP exploding? The first reason is cost savings. A recent market research study of businesses that have deployed VoIP (sponsored by Gartner Group and others) identifies these average savings, relative to TDM costs:

More efficient use of capital dollars and reduced need for in-house telecom technical expertise were often cited as major motivators for implementing VoIP in business environments.

The second reason for growing end-user adoption is enhanced productivity through use of advanced feature capabilities. Beyond cost savings, VoIP technology makes the most eye-catching features viable for both small and large businesses transforming telecommunications in much the way Windows now supercedes DOS on your PC.

For example, imagine arriving at the office and turning on your computer in order to read your emails and listen to your telephone voice messages! With VoIP, end-users simply click on voice messages that have been delivered to their computer. They listen to them (in the form of .wav files), forward, delete and respond to them, all with simple mouse-clicks. End-users toss out their old phone system "cheat sheet" you know the one with all the asterisk-number combinations for saving, forwarding, replaying or deleting voice messages, and for invoking call transfer, 3-way calling, and so on and just use point-and-click commands from an intuitive web interface on their computer.

Business phone systems can be enabled to screen calls according to each end-user's personal priorities. And, calls will follow employees wherever they choose to a cell phone, home phone, home-office phone again controlled by the end-user through easy point-and-click commands. A business's prospects and customers in Los Angeles can call a local L.A. phone number that rings at the company's call center in Denver. These are just a few examples of what businesses can achieve with VoIP!

How can service providers, like you, benefit from marketing a hosted VoIP service such as NGT's managed wholesale VoIP to the business community?
Consider these benefits:

1. Retailing VoIP service will generate new revenue streams
   This is an opportunity for service providers to get involved in the burgeoning VoIP marketplace at the ground floor, with growing business customer demand and attractive margins. And, VoIP can be a tremendous way for service providers to improve customer retention while expanding "share of wallet."
2. NGT's wholesale VoIP will accelerate time-to-market for service providers
   Outsourcing a VoIP solution reduces the need for service provider expertise, which shortens the time it takes to prepare and launch in the marketplace and, the reliable technology that's at the heart of our service reduces the risk to our service provider customers. We also guarantee continuous service software upgrades, so our customers are protected against the technology obsolescence they would face with a home-grown solution.
3. Wholesale VoIP reduces service provider's capital & expense
   With our service, there is no up-front investment required in feature server hardware or software, and operating costs for expert staff are reduced costs become much more predictable. Our hosted solution is highly scalable, so service providers can adjust quickly and economically with demand growth (or decline, for that matter).

Talk more with us about our VoIP portfolio and suite of services. The market is exploding, and New Global Telecom is actively engaged in developing winning service solutions! If you are interested in learning more, please contact your sales representative or email sales@gentel.net.

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We received great feedback from our customers about how to improve the Global Village Web site, including the need for greater functionality and ease of use. We listened to your input and are introducing a way for our customers to exchange routes and Loop-Arounds with members 365 days a year. Online Global Village members can now specify route details, including rate ranges, ASR, ALOC, destination codes and a text field to list the exact details or billing terms - or search the existing route database to locate specific routes. We also developed an expanded service portfolio, including: VoIP Direct, Virtual Local Loop, co-location services, IP provisioning and connectivity...plus, free access to TrafficVision and Traffic Performance Alarm reports as a standard service offering. With these added improvements and functionality, we're now ready to announce the official re-launch of the online Global Village!

In addition to product and service innovation, we've succeeded in growing our Global Village of carriers to provide a greater trading place for all our customers. The following list includes some or our new customers since July - please welcome these carriers to our Global Village:

Advanced Telemanagement Group
Belgacom
Convergitel
DataCom
Globcom
Hascom
International Telecom Network
Laticom
Logical Data
MWR Telecom
One-on-One
Supra

Another enhancement is the ability for our customers to email all members of the village to post a route or request a route via a daily email - "The Global Village Route Trader" - with contact info so you can quickly reach the right person. The daily Route Trader email header that you will be seeing is below:

Please log into the new online Global Village to view a complete listing of routes and trading opportunities and to test the new capabilities. Remember, these services are free - as a benefit of doing business with General Telecom. If your carrier sales ground is not currently using the Global Village, please call us so we can provide them access! If you've forgotten your user name/password, please contact customer service, 1-646-328-5800, option 1 or email cservice@gentel.net.

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The telecom industry appears to be on the rebound as Competitive Telecommunications Association (CompTel) officials reported one of the largest turnouts in years at the Fall 2003 show in Orlando, Florida. General Telecom also felt the energy of a vibrant marketplace: a full moon, festive atmosphere and an outstanding fireworks display made for the perfect evening at the General Telecom's Global Village Loop-Around Event on October 8th at the beautiful French Island Terrace at Disney's Epcot®. More than 60 people attended the evening event just minutes away from the conference and trade expo.*

CompTel reported that the show overall was also very successful with more than 1,600 attendees and 70 telecommunications service providers and vendors in attendance. CompTel said it was the association's largest Fall show in three years. More than 80 percent of the exhibit space has already been reserved for the association's Spring Convention in Anaheim.

Brian Metherell, Vice President of Sales for General Telecom, said the Loop-Around Event was a relaxed, social event in a setting conducive to casual business and casual conversation.

"It's a unique event in the industry and a great way for our customers and prospective customers to get to know General Telecom and the services we provide," said Metherell. "Customers and companies that normally would never get the chance to meet were able to exchange ideas and trade routes with other carriers as they looked for ways to increase revenues and decrease costs."

All customers of General Telecom are eligible to join the Global Village and take part in these special events, which enable the buying, selling and trading of routes, bypassing local loops, with no transaction fees. To find out more about getting a Global Village passport, call 646-328-5800 or contact sales@gentel.net. Thanks again to those who helped make the CompTel Loop-Around Event such a success. The next Loop-Around Event will take place during the February Comptel-Ascent Alliance show in Anaheim.

*Additional photos of the Loop-Around available in the Customer News section of MyGenTel (www.gentel.net/mygentel - login required).

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Upcoming Events
General Telecom will be attending the following events and conferences:

PTC 2004 January 11-14, 2004 at Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, Honolulu, Hawaii. For more information on this show, please visit www.ptc.org/conference/ptc2004.html.

The CompTel Ascent Spring Convention & Expo One of three major conferences held each year by the CompTel/ASCENT Alliance, the show takes place February 8-11, 2004 at the Anaheim Conv. Center in Anaheim, CA. We're planning a Loop-Around event! For more information on this show, please visit http://www.comptel.org/meetings_springfr.html.

GTM 2004 Conference May 17-21, 2004 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, D.C. For more information on the GTM 2004 show, please visit http://www.intelsat.com/aboutus/events.aspx

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 646-328-5800.

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With even more pressure on traffic margins, how can carriers manage traffic growth profitably and still keep customers happy?
The months ahead will present some difficult but potentially profitable challenges. Strategic business decisions have to be made quickly based on real-time information when assessing call traffic, costs, revenue and network management. That's why General Telecom recently chose to offer its TrafficVision & Traffic Performance Alarming Capabilities as a standard service to its customers free of charge.

It marks the first time that such comprehensive traffic services have been offered in the outsourced switching industry; however, it also demonstrates that General Telecom knows how crucial such services are to a carrier's survival in today's competitive global marketplace.

Acquiring more traffic is great, but not if you can t handle it. General Telecom is committed to enabling our international carrier customers to manage traffic margins more effectively and increase the profitability of their business operations.

About TrafficVision and TPA
TrafficVision provides customers with electronic access to traffic statistics, including call attempts, completions, answer seizure ratios, average call length and call minutes updated every 15 minutes and is available to all General Telecom customers at no charge. Traffic Performance Alarming permits carrier customers to proactively establish target thresholds for important traffic parameters on a trunk group basis, and receive automatic alarms via email if thresholds are breached. Thresholds can be set for a variety of parameters, measuring traffic throughput, traffic volume and average call length, in order to manage quality of service on specific routes. Automatic alarms can be issued via email and sent to traditional email boxes, or email-enabled pagers, on a 24x7 basis. We will be providing all current customers with more details on setting up thresholds over the next few weeks. If you want more information right away, please contact customer service, 646-328-5800, option 1 or email cservice@gentel.net.

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. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us understand your needs and concerns, so we can continue to innovate the services you need to succeed. If you have a question, concern, or current challenge, please write us at solutions@gentel.net. Remember, input from our customers helps us innovate new solutions! .

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General Telecom Customer Service Team
Support all of your internal communications with General Telecom and our customer service team. We've recently made organizational changes to ensure that superior customer service remains top priority. Your dedicated customer service team includes John Jairo Ramirez (Manager - Client Services), Suzanne Hanerfield, Valerie Collado and Lisa Hagal (Customer Service Support). Suzanne has been with General Telecom since 2001. "The new Global Village is so much easier to use - I think our customers will really like it," stated Suzanne after learning all the new tools and functionality.

"The automatic emails generated when routes exceed thresholds will really help the technical teams I speak with on a regular basis," stated Valerie, a GT employee since 2000. "It's great to be a part of a company that offers free tools to help our customers succeed - makes our job easier!"

Lisa Hagal recently joined our General Telecom team in October, and with a telecom background brings additional sales and customer support to our NY office. "It's great to be part of a company that is so proactive about customer support," added Lisa. "I'm looking forward to learning more about our diverse customer base."

"The goal of our team is to provide exceptional, proactive customer service, stated John Jairo Ramirez Many customers will start receiving weekly calls from us to ensure that we are doing our job in serving your needs. John Jairo, a General Telecom employee since 1996, oversees all customer service activities and will provide an alternate contact to assist with any issues that may arise.

If you've never met or spoken with this team, you may reach any of them by calling 646-328-5800, option 1 or email cservice@gentel.net.

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IP-Enabled Video Conferencing
General Telecom has installed Video Conferencing between New York and Colorado. We utilize H.323 protocol with Polycom ViewStation equipment in our Golden headquarters conference room and in our NY sales office conference room. We are planning a similar installation at our LA office by the end of the year. What does this mean for you? If you're ever visiting one of our offices in NY, LA or CO, we can arrange for you to "meet" the personnel in our other offices via video conference. To arrange for this, please contact solutions@gentel.net. This is just another way that VoIP is revolutionizing the way we communicate.

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