Audio Conferencing Phone

!NTERPRISE(R) Networking Services, the data networking integration arm of U S west, and ConferTech International, Inc. recently announced a strategic partnership centered on !NTERPRISE's continued enhancement of its audio conferencing phone services, and ConferTech's teleconferencing expertise and state-of-the- art Sonata(TM) technology.

!NTERPRISE chose to partner with ConferTech to offer conferencing services to a broader business market while delivering "best of breed" teleconferencing services to the estimated $1.6 billion multimedia (audio, video, and data) conferencing market.

"!NTERPRISE is committed to providing our customers with cost-effective services that answer their business communications needs now and into the future -- that means crisp audio conferencing today, with easily interpreted and detailed billing. We have built the first in a series of steps to provide for audio, video and data to originate from the same highly scalable platform. Our partnership with ConferTech will allow the scalable and flexible architecture needed to be more responsive to our customers, and continue to offer them leading edge services as the standards evolve," said president of !NTERPRISE.

The !NTERPRISE/ConferTech partnership delivers a number of additional benefits to !NTERPRISE customers, including integrated billing which will overcome the confusion of standard bills by itemizing all conference usage and costs within the client's standard telephone bill. This advanced billing service now offered in the Rocky Mountain States, will be available throughout the entire US and Canada by the end of the fourth quarter. Michael Locatis, ConferTech's corporate vice president of wholesale services added, "ConferTech couldn't be more pleased to have U S West's !NTERPRISE Networking Services as our first RBOC wholesale services customer utilizing the Sonata platform.

Our capabilities combined with their superb marketing skills and reputations are the perfect combination in a dynamic and highly competitive telecommunications market. Because of the seamless integration uniquely provided by the Sonata platform, !NTERPRISE's customers will be able to reserve, conduct and be billed for conference calls in an efficient and cost-effective manner."

A critical part of !NTERPRISE's offering is ConferTech's Sonata which completely integrates and automates conference operations, reservations, scheduling, and administration.

ConferTech will manage !NTERPRISE's Conferencing Services at an independent location, with operators dedicated exclusively to U S WEST's customers in a completely private-labeled turnkey environment. This arrangement will guarantee complete satisfaction to !NTERPRISE customers as well as a natural low-cost migration path to new technologies, such as data and video conferencing, and other services as they become available. Conferencing services are available today to !NTERPRISE's domestic and international customers.

Sonata's robustness and flexibility are unmatched in the teleconferencing bridge world. As the industry's first teleconferencing platform to achieve complete end-to-end integration, Sonata's high level of integration and automation makes it easy for customers to reserve, conduct, and be billed for their conference calls.

Based on customer registration, reservation and operations information, Sonata, via a rating algorithm process, can integrate conference billing information into a customer's regular telephone bill. Plus, Sonata's SS7-based capabilities provide detailed conference call data. Sonata currently supports up to 480 ports in a T1/ISDN environment.

The average cost of a typical !NTERPRISE conference, which would include 5 geographically dispersed customers for one hour with operator assistance, is $69.00 or $13.80 per participant.