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Arbinet, a global voice and IP communications provider, announced that its outsourcing service PrivateExchange has been selected by Russian operator MegaFon (News - Alert)to improve global interconnect efficiencies for its voice termination.

As part of its cost-savings initiatives, Arbinet also announced plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to an existing operations center in Herndon, Va., where 52 of its employees are already located.  The transition of the 17 employees and the closing of the New Jersey facility is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year. An additional 22 sales and sales support employees have already moved from the headquarters site to New York City.

PrivateExchange is an easy-to-use, low-risk outsourcing service. Arbinet is also known for other services including exchange, a marketplace for buying and selling voice communications and Arbinet (News - Alert)Carrier Services, a traditional wholesale model. 

Catering to retail service providers and carriers, PrivateExchange allows them to seamlessly create virtual interconnections with corresponding carriers that have direct routes into their markets. Users negotiate rates and volumes between themselves using an online tool while Arbinet routes, bills and settles between the designated parties.  

PrivateExchange offers a range of benefits including improved circuit utilization, TDM/VoIP conversion, VoIP protocol support, increased network efficiency and lower back-office costs related to interconnections. It also makes swap agreements and volume commitment deals easier through online reporting tools and automatic alerting.  

MegaFon will use PrivateExchange to build virtual direct routes to its international correspondent carriers and in this process improve port utilization and network efficiency.

'We are very pleased with MegaFon's endorsement and utilization of our PrivateExchange service,' states Dan Powdermaker, Arbinet's senior vice president of sales and marketing. 'In an industry where many operators are looking for new efficiencies when delivering international voice services to their end-users, Arbinet's PrivateExchange is a unique, flexible, low cost and easily implemented solution. By using PrivateExchange, MegaFon is optimizing the cost of handling interconnects and will be able to devote more of its resources to retail product evolution, subscriber acquisition and customer service.'

'Arbinet's PrivateExchange is a part of our action plan for developing MegaFon's international footprint,' states Konstantin Solodukhin, MegaFon's deputy general director for fixed line business development and interconnection. 'It was our strategic decision to focus on interconnection with incumbent carriers and find an integrated solution for the rest of international voice wholesale. Arbinet's PrivateExchange allows us to use less company resources on handling those interconnections as well as to keep independence in choosing partners for traffic exchange and focus on negotiating better rates and achieving better quality'

In another article, TMCnet had reported that Arbinet has reduced the fees it charges to transport traffic on PrivateExchange by up to 57 percent.

Divya Narain is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Divya's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Alice Straight