As announced previously, Fusion Communications Corporation and PoweredCom, Inc. will merge their telephone businesses on July 1, 2004, and telephone services that are currently being provided by PoweredCom will be integrated into Fusion's services on July 1. With the merger, an interconnection between FUSION IP-Phone and PoweredCom's POINT Phone and POINT Phone select services will begin. (*1)

PoweredCom and other power-company-related carriers have been steadily increasing the interconnections for their IP telephone services, but with this merger, five power-company-related carriers will begin offering interconnections for their IP telephone services via Fusion's IP telephony platformstarting in mid-July. Those five companies are: Tohoku Intelligent Telecommunication Co., Inc. (TOHKnet), Chubu Telecommunications Co., Inc. (CTC), K-Opticom Corporation (K-OPT), STNet Inc. (STNet), and Kyushu Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. (QTNet).

This interconnection will provide free calls between users of the IP telephone services of TOHKnet (TOHK IP Phone), CTC (IP telephone service), K-OPT (eo-net Phone, TELvision), STNet (4ucall), Energia Communications, Inc. (MEGA EGG IP Phone, Energia IP Phone) (*2), QTNet (BBIQ Phone), and PoweredCom (POINT Phone, POINT Phone select), and the IP telephone services of Fusion-affiliated ISPs and CATV providers.

This completes the interconnection of IP telephone services provided by six power-company-related carriers nationwide with POINT Phone and FUSION IP-Phone.

Currently, Hokkaido Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. (HOTnet), Hokuriku Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. (HTNet), and Okinawa Telecommunication Network Co., Inc. (OTNet) are looking into providing IP telephone services, which would further extend the interconnections among power-company-related carriers and improve the convenience to customers.