China's VoIP deal

FierceIP reported a piece on the VoIP deal between a Indiana firm and two Chinese companies. It will be interesting to see its future, and how the big telecom elephants are going to respond to this...

A telecom service and equipment firm based in Indianapolis has cut a deal to sell its VoIP service in China. InteleCom Solutions said it signed a letter of intent with two Chinese companies for sales and distribution.

Panda International and Shanghai NIU Telecom agreed to market InteleCom service and equipment in China. Together, the two Chinese telecoms comprise 372 million landlines, 508 mobile users and 170 Internet subscribers, InteleCom's chairman, John Roberts said. All 1.1 billion are potential VoIP customers, he said. (One research firm pegged the Chinese VoIP market at 144 million paying users in four years. China, in turn, is expected to turn out 35 million VoIP phones this year.)

InteleCom previously cut an equipment distribution deal with Sakal Group, the largest privately owned retail chain in Israel. That deal put 21,000 InteleCom VoIP phones in Sakal's 80 retail stores and 800 wholesale points-of-sale. InteleCom clearly has a plan for world VoIP domination through the clever use of alliances.