BOCA RATON, Fla.(BUSINESS WIRE)July 12, 2004--
-- Level 3 to Bring Direct Inbound Dial Technology to i2Telecom’s VoIP Platform --
i2Telecom International, Inc. (OTCBB:ITUI), an emerging leader in voice/data communications technology for the Internet, today announced that it will use voice services from Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT) to introduce Direct Inbound Dial (DID) capability to i2Telecom’s Advanced Digital Voice platform™. With the addition of Level 3’s (3)VoIP(SM) Local Inbound service, i2Telecom’s customers can leverage the Company’s end-to-end Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network to receive calls that originate from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) through their InternetTalker™ microgateway devices anywhere in the world.

The benefits of the new agreement with Level 3 include i2Telecom’s ability to assign a traditional phone number, complete with local area code, to its easy-to-deploy InternetTalker devices. This means that businesses can use i2Telecom’s VoIP network to establish a presence in over 300 different markets across the United States — enabling people to dial a US local number from any phone to reach them regardless of where they are located.

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July 12 (Bloomberg) -- MCI Inc., less than three months out of the largest U.S. bankruptcy, said Leucadia National Corp. is seeking U.S. government approval to buy a controlling stake in the company. Shares of MCI rose as much as 15 percent.

Leucadia, a New York-based company that has bought distressed businesses from pipelines to insurers, will seek clearance to buy at least 50 percent of MCI, Ashburn, Virginia- based MCI said in a statement. MCI’s market capitalization was about $4.6 billion on Friday.

Leucadia’s plan may entice other companies to bid for MCI, the No. 2 U.S. long-distance phone provider, said Patrick Comack, an analyst at Guzman & Co. While long-distance revenue has slumped, MCI’s emergence from Chapter 11 under new Chief Executive Michael Capellas allowed it to shave $35 billion of debt while retaining one of the world’s largest Internet networks.

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RARITAN, N.J.(BUSINESS WIRE)July 12, 2004--According to a new report from The PELORUS Group entitled «North American Prepaid Cards: Wireline Markets In Transition,» the prepaid phone card market exploded between 1995 and 2000, increasing from $750 million in 1995 to over $3.3 billion in 2000. During this period both the domestic and international components surged. But 2001 and 2002 saw the market contract. In 2003 total phone card revenues enjoyed a turnaround, managing to reach back up to about $3.2 billion.

The direction was not uniform, however, as growth declined for domestic phone card revenues, while international revenues jumped. Tom Miezejeski, Vice President Of Research for The PELORUS Group explains, «Lower rates in the international sector have made international calling affordable for a larger segment of the population. Indeed, rates for international calls have come down sharply in recent years. Besides the impact of competition among phone card vendors, rates for all international calls have dropped as foreign carriers have struggled with heightened competition from other carriers and IP telephony. But this in turn has generated more acceptance among consumers. Thus, minutes of use have grown to more than offset the revenue erosion stemming from lower rates. The result is higher revenues even as some sectors of the market have contracted.»

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