Posted: 12/2000
News Briefs
* Yahoo! Inc. (www.yahoo.com) will partner with Net2Phone Inc. (www.net2phone.com) in a deal that will let the company offer Internet content over the phone, voice mail and long- distance calling.
The new services will include a toll-free number--+ 1 800 MY YAHOO--called Yahoo by Phone, which will allow for spoken, personalized content such as stock quotes. Users with Yahoo! e-mail accounts will be able to call the toll-free number and have their mail read to them. In addition, Yahoo! users will be able to make long-distance calls to any number in the United States by using their PCs. The services will be supported by ads.
* AT&T Business Markets Division (www.att.com/business/wireless.html) has announced it will make its long-distance voice service available for online purchase through Simplexity.com Inc.'s (www.simplexity.com) website. The agreement marks one of the first vertical telecom e-marketplace partners for AT&T. The company's extensive product portfolio includes switched and dedicated local and long-distance offerings, including domestic and international long-distance calling plans as well as toll-free service. Small and medium-sized businesses, which Simplexity targets, now will have the flexibility to research, compare pricing and purchase any product online instantly. Simplexity's neutral service gives users side-by-side comparisons from multiple carriers. Bids are organized in an "apples-to-apples" format, allowing buyers to purchase telecom services online.
* Telephone.com Inc. (www.telephone.com), the global telecommunications commerce exchange, has made significant changes to its website in order to focus its offerings and better reflect its customer base. The redesigned site features streamlined trading platforms for telecommunications equipment and wholesale bandwidth. Telephone.com customers can also compare and purchase local, long-distance, DSL, Internet and data services.
* Participating small businesses cut their annual telecom costs by nearly $40,000--an average of 45 percent--by comparison shopping at TeleBright.com Inc. (www.telebright.com) during the website's "TeleBright.com Savings Challenge," which took place in September. TeleBright.com conducted the week-long challenge to dramatize the savings that small businesses can reap by using its site to shop for telecom services. Collectively, small businesses that participated cut their annual telecom costs, indicating that small businesses could save more than $6.7 billion of the $15 billion they spent last year for telecom services. At TeleBright.com, more than 60 service providers offer calling plans and services that include long distance, local, wireless, T1 Internet, Internet dial-up, DSL and web hosting.
