VoIP Inc. To Acquire Volo/Caerus

Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
Greg Galitzine

VoIP Inc. To Acquire Volo/Caerus

Just saw this on the wire...  Ever the sign of a healthy industry, the acquisitions in the VoIP space continue at a torrid pace in 2005.

Here's the official release:

VoIP Inc. announced today that it has advanced $475,000 dollars and had signed a letter of intent to acquire Caerus, Inc. which includes all wholly-owned subsidiaries; Volo Communications, Inc., Caerus Networks Inc, and Caerus Billing Inc.

Under the purposed purchase terms, VoIP, Inc. will acquire 100% of the stock and assets of Caerus, Inc in exchange for the issuance of 15 million common shares of VoIP, Inc. The company has advanced Caerus, Inc. $475,000 for implementation of their newly developed Least Cost Routing engine (LCR) and the Company expects to fund an additional $275,000 dollars for LCR prior to closing.

At the core of Caerus' value proposition and industry differentiation lies in its proprietary softswitch technology. The protocol agnostic architecture enables virtually any network protocol, from legacy switches to the latest MPLS standards, to communicate with the Caerus softswitch. Shawn Lewis, Caerus' President and CEO is a well respected leader and innovator, having written the patents for the first softswitch (patent 6,614,781) and SS7 Media Gateway (patent 6,442,169). One of Mr. Lewis' many accomplishments was the sale in 1998 of XCOM Technologies, Inc., a CLEC that he co-founded, to Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ NM: LVLT - News) for common stock, options and warrants valued at $154 million dollars.

Caerus, Inc and its three subsidiaries generated revenues during calendar year 2004 that totaled 14 million dollars and based on current contracts and purchased orders, revenues are estimated to exceed 38 million for calendar year 2005.

The Volo Communications, Inc. subsidiary is the licensed facilities-based CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) and IXC (Inter Exchange Carrier). Caerus Networks, Inc. is the technology research and development subsidiary and Caerus Billing, Inc. is the billing and mediation subsidiary.

Volo Communications is a wholesale provider of advanced telecommunications technologies and services to carriers and service providers including Inter Exchange Carriers (IXCs), CLECs, ISPs, Cable Operators and Enhanced Voice and Data Service Providers. Through the wholesale only model Caerus has positioned itself as a "carrier's carrier" and a leader in the broadband voice marketplace. Volo markets its network products and services under the VoiceOne brand name.

Caerus currently has network facilities (Network Access Points "NAPs") operating in Orlando, Atlanta, New York, Dallas and Los Angeles. A total of 22 NAPs are planned to be operational by the end of 2005 that will be capable of addressing the top 100 MSAs representing 93 percent of the domestic population.

The VoiceOne Network Operations Center (NOC) is a fully manned 24 x 7 operation and is the heartbeat of Volo Communications. The NOC is where the company monitors all aspects of the technical environment, from its nationwide OC-12 backbone to network routers, SIP proxies and numerous routing gateways, soft switches and other aspects of its VOIP infrastructure. Fully redundant technologies are deployed in a scalable network environment that enables the company to compete effectively and efficiently in the ever-evolving and demanding IP telecommunications marketplace. The VoiceOne network incorporates an advanced MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) architecture which is designed and operated to offer world-class services to carriers and service providers. VoiceOne features direct interconnection facilities with multiple LECs (Local Exchange Carriers), CLECs, IXCs, service providers, cable operators, wireless carriers and resellers.

"The combined strengths of our two companies will make us the leader in the IP telephony industry," said Steven Ivester, CEO of VoIP Inc. "This acquisition will provide us with the one of the largest Voice over IP Networks in the United States. It is one thing to have the Carrier grade network to support growth, but it is something else to have the engineering and development talent to make you the industry leader in VoIP Carrier grade networks. We are about 80% of the way through the negotiations of the definitive agreement and feel that we have most of the difficult hurtles behind us. Once the acquisition is complete our team will consist of some of the industries best and most forward thinking minds."



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