Qwest Communications International Inc. and Bell Canada say they have signed a multi-year interconnection agreement to enhance the quality and reliability of telephone services to residential and business customers making international long-distance calls between Canada and the United States.

International voice traffic between Canada and the U.S. represents the largest volume of international long-distance traffic in the world, the companies say, with telephone traffic between the two countries estimated to represent more than 12 billion minutes of use per year.

The companies say Qwest and Bell Canada customers will experience transparent use and termination of long-distance services between their two countries.