Full-Featured Flat-Rate Calling Comes to Luzerne County and Lackawanna Valley

EDISON, N.J., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Vonage Holdings Corp., the leading
provider of broadband phone service, today announced its local availability in
Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania.
High-speed Internet subscribers nestled in steamtown can now take
advantage of Vonage’s broadband phone service offering free unlimited local
and long distance calling. Each plan includes the most popular features like
call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail for one low, flat monthly rate.
Vonage customers within Wilkes-Barre and Scranton can now keep their current
numbers or choose telephone numbers within the popular (570) area code.
«Northeastern Pennsylvania residents don’t have to spend their time mining
the phone companies and cable operators for cheaper plans and better features.
The Vonage locomotive has steamed into town giving consumers and small
businesses a choice where they never thought they had one -- their local phone
service,» said Jeffrey A. Citron, chairman & CEO of Vonage Holdings Corp. «Our
presence in this area gives residents and small businesses the option to
choose a phone service that provides inexpensive, flat-rate calling plans with
free, customer-controlled features, and significantly reduced international
rates.»

Using the latest technology, Vonage sets the standard for the new
generation of phone service with residential and business calling plans:

* $14.99/month -- Residential Basic Plan -- 500 minutes of local, toll
and long distance calling throughout the United States and Canada.

* $24.99/month -- Residential Premium Unlimited Plan -- unlimited calling
throughout the 50 United States and Canada anytime, anywhere.

* $39.99/month -- Small Business Basic Plan -- 1500 minutes of calling
throughout the United States and Canada, including a free dedicated fax
line.

* $49.99/month -- Small Business Unlimited Plan -- unlimited calling
throughout the United States and Canada, including a free dedicated fax
line.

* Services and hardware included for free on any of the above plans:

-- Voicemail -- Call hunt
-- Caller ID -- Call transfer
-- Call waiting -- Repeat dialing
-- Call forwarding -- Bandwidth saver
-- Call return (*69) -- Area code selection
-- Caller ID block (*67) -- International call block
-- Web-based account management -- Linksys RT31P2 Device

• Real-time billing activity -- Great international calling

  
  

• Online voicemail retrieval rates:

  
  

• Real-time inbound/outbound * Tel Aviv 4 cents per minute
  call record details * London 3 cents per minute
  

  • Sydney 4 cents per minute
    
  
  About Vonage(R)
  Vonage is redefining communications by offering consumers and small
  businesses an affordable alternative to traditional telephone service. The
  fastest growing telephony company in North America, Vonage’s service area
  encompasses more than 1950 active rate centers in over 125 global markets.
  Vonage is sold directly through [ >>> ] and retail partners such
  as Amazon.com, RadioShack, Best Buy, Circuit City, Staples, Fry’s Electronics
  and Office Depot. Wholesale partners such as EarthLink, ARMSTRONG(R),
  Advanced Cable Communications and the Coldwater Board of Public Utilities
  resell the Vonage broadband phone service under their own unique brands. With
  more than 300,000 lines in service, Vonage continues to add more than 25,000
  lines per month to its network. Over 5 million calls per week are made using
  Vonage, the easy-to-use, feature-rich, flat rate phone service. Vonage is
  headquartered in Edison, New Jersey. For more information about Vonage’s
  products and services, please visit [ >>> ] or call
  1-VONAGE-HELP. Vonage(R), Vonage Digital Voice™, Toll Free Plus(SM) and
  Virtual Phone Number(SM) are trademarks of Vonage Holdings Corp.

RealPages.com® from BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) the Southeast’s leading online yellow pages and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), developer of the award-winning Google® search engine, today announced an agreement whereby RealPages.com will become the first yellow pages publisher authorized to sell advertising through Google AdWords® to small and medium-sized local businesses.

Under the multi-year agreement, BellSouth will include Google AdWords as an integral part of its RealSearch offering, a patent-pending search engine marketing service designed for small and medium-sized local businesses. By aligning with the BellSouth salesforce, Google can now reach more small and medium-sized local businesses in the Southeast with Google AdWords. With AdWords, Google’s performance-based search advertising program, advertisers present marketing messages to potential customers at the precise moment they are looking for information related to the products and services the advertiser offers. Google AdWords enables select RealSearch customers to generate leads across the Google Network, which reaches more than 80 percent of U. S. Internet users through sites such as Google.com, AOL, BellSouth.Net, and Earthlink among others (source: MediaMetrix, September 2004).

«Helping our advertisers grow their businesses is at the core of The Real Yellow Pages and RealPages.com’s success,» said Elmer Smith, president of BellSouth Advertising & Publishing. «We believe this partnership will allow RealSearch customers to take advantage of the extensive reach of the Google Network, which will aid them in attracting more and more customers.»

«Our relationship with BellSouth enables Google to leverage an established, market-leading salesforce to reach small and medium-sized local businesses across the Southeast,» said Sukhinder Singh, general manager of Google Local and Third Party Sales. «Google is excited to add a new way to reach prospective advertisers, while continuing to provide users with relevant local information and advertisements.»

Google currently provides advertisers with the ability to reach customers in local markets through a variety of AdWords targeting options including regional and city level, as well as through an address-based radius feature or by specifying latitude and longitude points.

With RealSearch Engine Solutions from BellSouth, advertisers reach potential customers when consumers are actively looking for information about products and services online. BellSouth offers a full-service solution that sends a guaranteed number of targeted visitors from search engines directly to a customer’s website.

Smith said by managing the local search solution for advertisers, BellSouth is saving its customers time and money and allowing them to benefit from search engine marketing while maintaining focus on their day-to-day business operations.

«The phenomenal growth of local search, combined with BellSouth’s one-of-a-kind RealSearch product incorporating Google’s AdWords, positions BellSouth as a primary partner for our online advertisers,» Smith said.

According to The Kelsey Group, provider of strategic research, analysis, data and competitive metrics on yellow pages, electronic directories and local media, the local paid search advertising market generated $45 million in 2003 and is expected to reach as high as $2.5 billion by 2008 in advertising revenue.

Businesses interested in more information on RealSearch Engine Solutions from BellSouth can visit www.advertising.realpages.com.

The agreement is the expansion of an alliance that was announced earlier this year. In April, the two companies announced an agreement whereby Google’s search results and targeted advertisements were made available through BellSouth’s Internet services home page www.bellsouth.net for Internet customers.

About BellSouth Advertising and Publishing
BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corporation (BAPCO) is the leading provider of print and Internet Yellow Pages products in the southeast. BAPCO and LM Berry Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of BellSouth, publishes 63 million copies of the print Yellow Pages in more than 500 editions in the nine-state BellSouth region. Users referred to The Real Yellow Pages® from BellSouth nearly 2 billion times last year and made nearly 160 million searches on RealPages.com® (www.realpages.com). The Real Yellow Pages is a powerful information resource, linking buyers and sellers, with approximately 85 percent of consumers who reference the directories’ most frequently used headings making a purchase based on their findings.

About BellSouth Corporation
BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications services company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth serves nearly 50 million local, long distance, Internet and wireless customers in the United States and 12 other countries.

Consistently recognized for customer satisfaction, BellSouth provides complete communications solutions to the residential and business markets. In the residential market, BellSouth offers DSL high-speed Internet access and long distance, advanced voice features and other services. The company’s BellSouth Answers package combines local and long distance service with an array of calling features; wireless data, voice and e-mail services; and high-speed DSL or dial-up Internet service and Cingular Wireless. In the business market, BellSouth serves small, medium and large businesses providing secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also provides online and directory advertising services through RealPages.com® and The Real Yellow Pages from BellSouth®. BellSouth owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, the nation’s second largest wireless company, which provides innovative wireless voice and data services.

About Google Inc.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program, which is the largest and fastest growing in the industry, provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com

IRVINE, Calif. (BUSINESS WIRE) Quest Foglight and Quest PerformaSure Selected Over Competitive Offerings

Quest Software Inc. (Nasdaq:QSFT), a leading provider of application, database and Windows management solutions, today announced that Cbeyond Communications has chosen Quest Foglight(R) and Quest PerformaSure™ to manage the performance and uptime of its most business-critical J2EE applications. Cbeyond, a leading provider of Voice over IP (VoIP) and broadband Internet services to small businesses, selected these Quest application management solutions for J2EE to accelerate the diagnosis and resolution of performance issues in production before end-user experience is impacted.

Cbeyond’s WebLogic-based J2EE systems are the backbone of its operation and are relied upon by both employees and customers alike. While searching for a best-of-breed J2EE application management solution, Cbeyond conducted a head-to-head comparison between Quest Software and another leading vendor. When making their selection, Cbeyond cited easier installation, more powerful J2EE diagnostics tools, and integrated production monitoring and diagnostics as their deciding factors in choosing Quest’s solutions.

[ read more ]

Electronic Payment Services Brought to Mobile Subscribers in Chongqing
CHONGQING, China, /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ SmartPay Jieyin Ltd. (’’SmartPay’’) today announced the launch of its electronic payment system in Chongqing. The system allows mobile users to pay their phone bills, top up their pre-paid accounts, purchase online gaming time and other merchant offerings simply by sending an SMS message. In addition, mobile subscribers will be able to access a wide variety of payment and information services.

Partner merchants and banks including China Unicom, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) have already been fully integrated into the system. Other large merchants and banks will be added in the coming months.

Details of the ongoing promotion surrounding the launch of SmartPay services in Chongqing can be seen at [ >>> ] .
The system launch in Chonqing closely follows the launch of SmartPay services in Shanghai and Anhui. With the addition of Chongqing, over 11 million mobile phone subscribers can now use SmartPay to pay for merchant offerings conveniently and electronically.

Customers can easily register for the SmartPay service through ICBC’s phone banking system (dial 95588) or ABC’s extensive network of over 500 branches. Customers can also access the service through SmartPay’s website at [ >>> ] .

SmartPay’s Vice President for Business Development, Jennifer Zhao Lizhen, commented at the launch, ’’Electronic payments are clearly becoming a critical step in the continued growth of consumer commerce in China. SmartPay is helping merchants sell products to consumers in Chongqing, Anhui, Shanghai and shortly many other provinces. There is a huge desire on the part of merchants and banks to make this succeed, because they realize that their business and consumers demand more convenient payments.’’

SmartPay’s coverage continues to expand. In the coming two quarters, the Company expects services to commence in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Hebei, Liaoning, Shandong and many other provinces.

About SmartPay

SmartPay operates a consumer electronic payment service in China under the brand name ’’Jieyin.’’ Jieyin processes electronic payment of consumer mobile and VoIP-based long distance phone bills. A significant number of merchants including many of China’s leading mobile operators, with a combined subscriber base of over fifty million consumers, have initially contracted with SmartPay to utilize this service. SmartPay will be launching additional direct-to-consumer (D2C) and peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services under the ’’Jieyin’’ brand name. SmartPay’s board and management include founders of some of China’s most successful technology companies, including Linktone and AsiaInfo.