VocalTec
Encyclopedia
VocalTec Communications Inc. , is an Israel
i telecom
equipment provider. The company was founded in 1989 by Alon Cohen
and Lior Haramaty
, who invented and patented the first Voice over IP
audio transceiver. VocalTec continues to be a leading VoIP company, with major customers such as Deutsche Telekom
, Telecom Italia
and many others.
, bought a 21.1 percent stake in VocalTec for $48.3 million, in addition to purchasing $30 million in telephony products, services, and support over the following two-and-a-half years.
During the Dot-com bubble
the company’s share peaked at a price of $3363 per share on March 3, 2000 (split adjusted).
In 2005, completed a business combination with Tdsoft
, a provider of VoIP Gateways.
Today VocalTec specializes in providing carrier-class multimedia and voice-over-IP solutions for communication service providers. The company provides the Essentra solution suite that comprises the essential building blocks required to develop a next-generation-network, addressing customers’ specific requirements in trunking
, peering
and residential/enterprise VoIP application solutions.
On July 16, 2010, MagicJack
took over VocalTec in a reverse takeover
.
Corporation (Internet Telephony Exchange Carrier) a US based wholesale provider of Internet-based phone calls. The ITXC Voice over IP
network was powered by the VocalTec technology. In 2003 ITXC was acquired by Teleglobe.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i telecom
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
equipment provider. The company was founded in 1989 by Alon Cohen
Alon Cohen
Alon Cohen is the co-founder of VocalTec Inc. and the inventor of the Audio Transceiver that enabled the creation of Voice Over Networks products and eventually the VoIP industry, that changed the face of the telecommunication industry...
and Lior Haramaty
Lior Haramaty
Lior Haramaty is the co-founder of VocalTec Inc. and the inventor of the Audio Transceiver that enabled the creation of Voice Over Networks products and eventually the VoIP industry, that changed the face of the telecommunication industry.VocalTec is recognized as the first company to provide...
, who invented and patented the first Voice over IP
Voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
audio transceiver. VocalTec continues to be a leading VoIP company, with major customers such as Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
, Telecom Italia
Telecom Italia
Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. Now a private concern listed on the Borsa Italiana, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of which was...
and many others.
History
VocalTec released the first ever Internet VoIP program in February 1995. The company had an IPO on the NASDAQ during 1996 and in 1997 Europe's largest telecommunications company, Deutsche TelekomDeutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
, bought a 21.1 percent stake in VocalTec for $48.3 million, in addition to purchasing $30 million in telephony products, services, and support over the following two-and-a-half years.
During the Dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
the company’s share peaked at a price of $3363 per share on March 3, 2000 (split adjusted).
In 2005, completed a business combination with Tdsoft
Tdsoft
Tdsoft is an Israeli company, founded in 1994 by Yosi Albagli, Arye Shaham and Eytan Radian, together with Teledata Communications. Tdsoft developed V5.X based products, including V5Core Software, V5Proxi, and Tdgate family of TDM / ATM and Voice over IP access gateways.Investors in Tdsoft included...
, a provider of VoIP Gateways.
Today VocalTec specializes in providing carrier-class multimedia and voice-over-IP solutions for communication service providers. The company provides the Essentra solution suite that comprises the essential building blocks required to develop a next-generation-network, addressing customers’ specific requirements in trunking
Trunking
In modern communications, trunking is a concept by which a communications system can provide network access to many clients by sharing a set of lines or frequencies instead of providing them individually. This is analogous to the structure of a tree with one trunk and many branches. Examples of...
, peering
Peering
In computer networking, peering is a voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the...
and residential/enterprise VoIP application solutions.
On July 16, 2010, MagicJack
MagicJack
MagicJack is a device that plugs into a USB port on the user's computer and that has a standard RJ-11 phone jack into which any standard phone can be plugged. This allows the user to make phone calls to almost any phone in the U.S...
took over VocalTec in a reverse takeover
Reverse takeover
A reverse takeover or reverse merger is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public...
.
VocalTec Internet Phone
VocalTec Internet Phone (the original iPhone was a VoIP application released in February 1995. The software was invented by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty, the two co-founders of VocalTec Ltd. At the base of the Internet Phone residing the invention of Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty named the "Audio Transceiver", which managed the dynamic jitter buffer that was critical for achieving adaptive lower possible audio latency along with handling packet loss, packet re-ordering, and receiver transmitter sample rate adjustments. The first implem entation of the "Audio Transceiver" was carried out by Elad Sion.ITXC
In 1997 VocalTec founded ITXCITXC
ITXC Corporation was a US based wholesale provider of Voice over IP , Internet-based phone calls.It was co-founded by Tom Evslin and his wife Mary in 1997 with seed money from AT&T and VocalTec . In 2000, it had the largest Internet telephony network in the world. The company was acquired by...
Corporation (Internet Telephony Exchange Carrier) a US based wholesale provider of Internet-based phone calls. The ITXC Voice over IP
Voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the Internet...
network was powered by the VocalTec technology. In 2003 ITXC was acquired by Teleglobe.