HELSINKI, FINLAND, 1998 MAY 22 (NB) -

By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes. RSL Com Oy, a division of RSL Communications, has partnered with Delta Three, another RSL group firm, to offer Internet telephony services into the Finnish marketplace.

As with other Delta Three Net telephony services, the actual Internet leg of the call is transparent to the user -- one dials a simple access number (99555), taps in an ID plus PIN, and then the number to be called. The call then progresses and ringing is heard in a matter of seconds.

RSL is offering the Net phone service to anyone in Finland with a phone line, including consumer (as well as business) users. All that is required is for the user to apply for a prepaid or credit account.

With the launch of the Finnish Delta three network, RSL says that its Net phone service will support 14 countries by the end of the year in Europe and 40-plus worldwide within the same timescale.

According to Tuomo Kiesvaara, RSL Com Finland's managing director, the quality of the Internet call is not as good as a so-called ordinary phone call. "For ordinary discussion the quality is good enough," he explained, likening the call quality to that of a cellular, rather than landline, phone call.

In return the call quality reduction and short delay in processing the call, Finnish users will enjoy international call discounts as high as 70 percent on some routes. Richard Williams, RSL Com Europe's president, said that, initially, users of the Net phone service will see price savings on their call, but the plan is to offer value-added services at a later stage, thanks to the integration of computing and communications.

"This will completely change the conventional model of telecommunications," he explained.

Newsbytes notes that, as well as its standard Net phone service, Delta Three offers PC/phone services across the Internet to more than 240 countries.

Details can be found on the Web at http://www.pc2phone.com . Users can register for a Delta Three account, meanwhile, at http://www.deltathree.com .. (19980522/Press Contact: Tumo Kiesvaara, RSL Com Finland +358-942- 4200/WIRES TELECOM, ONLINE/)

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