NBC Monday signed a strategic partnership with Internet telephony firm Net2Phone Inc. to offer the telephony services from its properties: NBC.com, Snap.com and NBC Interactive Neighborhood.
NBC also said that it, Snap.com and NBC sister company GE Capital will acquire equity stakes in
Net2Phone and will retain the right to nominate a member to Net2Phone’s board. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.
Net2Phone offers a PC-to-phone tool that allows users to place telephone calls anywhere in the world via the Internet.
The multi-year agreement calls for Net2Phone’s service to be prominently positioned within Snap.com’swhite and yellow page phone listings. Net2Phone will also receive a featured link on the NBC.com home page and its PC-to-phone services will be integrated throughout NBC Interactive Neighborhood.
“This agreement with Net2Phone will powerfully bridge NBC’s Internet properties with the most ubiquitous consumer technology in the history of the world — the telephone,” said Martin J. Yudkovitz, president, NBC Interactive Media.
“Interpersonal communications has been at the heart of the Internet’s phenomenal growth, and Internet telephony is poised to explode as one of the next big applications that will revolutionize the way we all interact and communicate.”
