Belgium’s Voxbone Aims for Big Numbers

Voxbone, a Belgian company that claims it is the European leader for renting international telephone numbers for IP telephones, is staging a worldwide expansion. The company says that in 2006, it plans to bring in new employees so the founders can concentrate more on this new effort.

Established in 2002 by Rodrigue Ullens and François Struman, Voxbone specializes in the distribution of Direct Inbound Dial (DID or virtual numbers). Voxbone rents these telephone numbers in more than 25 countries and diverts the incoming telephone traffic for these numbers via the Internet to IP telephones all over the world.

Using this service, call centers or companies with branches abroad have access to local numbers in various countries so they can make calls via the Internet and avoid the cost of international traffic. Voxbone has an interconnection with local operators in every country for which the company hires numbers.

With this offer, Voxbone primarily is targeting VoIP operators that want to provide their customers with additional services on top of the standard VoIP offering. Voxbone explains it does not compete with VoIP service providers, as it doesn't offer a complete VoIP service but concentrates specifically on receiving international calls via IP for the virtual numbers it provides.

The company, which recently received additional support from investor E-merge, wants to attain, in the short to medium term, a leading position in the worldwide market for the professional hiring of international telephone numbers.

To achieve this, Voxbone says it has been “working on a number of important ideas over the past few years which already distinguish the company” from its competition.

"First and foremost is the quality of our service," says Ullens, one of the company’s two directors. "Lots of people only think about the price when they consider VoIP. It's true that you can communicate internationally with VoIP for the same price as a local call. But a lower price alone isn't enough! Telephony is now simply expected and the client wants the same quality with VoIP as with their trusted telephony. That's why we are constantly investing in the quality and the stability of our service provision. Add to that the necessary bandwidth and the scope of our coverage, and you have the best quality possible. With the recent capital increase we have moreover been able to invest in a new and fully redundant infrastructure with redundant servers so we can provide our clients with the proposed high quality."

Struman, the other director of Voxbone, adds: "A customer with lots of international communications can also benefit from our VoIP service, for example. Just think of the many expatriates worldwide: using our service they can get a local number in their home country and receive the calls via an IP telephone. Family, friends and local contacts can then enjoy calling at local prices. Our first priority remains the expansion of the number of local telecom partners so that we can supplement our provision all over the world. We already cover important areas such as North and South America, Europe and the Pacific and Asia. Our quality and the fact that we make the distribution of DIDs our core business is what distinguishes us. That's why we want to expand our scope further."

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