African Carriers Moving to VoIP
iBasis Cites Strong Regional Growth at ITU Conference

Carriers in Region Seek To Lower Costs, Expand Global Service with iBasis;

Service Provider Relationship Extend iBasis Footprint to 19 African Countries

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA-November 12, 2001-iBasis, Inc., (Nasdaq: IBAS), the leader in Internet-based voice communications, in connection with the ITU Telecom Africa conference, held here, today announced that it has seen remarkable growth in its international Internet telephony services in Africa and the Middle East. iBasis has seen its voice traffic and revenues from the region grow more than 18-fold over the past year. Through its carrier relationships in the region, iBasis is able to provide international service to 19 African countries.

"Our growth in Africa over the past year is clear evidence that the worldwide move to outsource international service is well underway in the region," said Ofer Gneezy, president and CEO of iBasis. "During this period, the appeal of Internet telephony has become compelling to African carriers, who have begun to view VoIP the way it is viewed in China and Latin America, as a highly efficient, high quality communications solution that can become an engine of economic growth. Building on our VoIP leadership in providing global service to the largest carriers in North America, Asia, and Latin America, iBasis is proud to introduce the benefits of Tier 1 quality Internet telephony to African carriers and their customers."

iBasis and the ITU

iBasis today also announced that its vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Dan Powdermaker, will discuss the benefits of IP telephony as part of an industry panel at the prestigious ITU (International Telecommunications Union) Telecom Africa conference. The panel, entitled "Packet Telephony - VoIP" will be held at 3:45 P.M., local time, today.

iBasis works closely with the ITU to provide its perspective on regulatory affairs and has served as an industry expert on policy issues related to VoIP. In March 2001, iBasis was invited by the ITU to serve as a member of its informal group of experts in conjunction with the ITU's World Telecom Policy Forum on IP Telephony, held in Geneva, Switzerland.

iBasis in Africa and the Move to Internet Telephony

The iBasis Network^TM has 589 Points of Presence in more than 80 countries. Through its relationships with African carriers, iBasis is able to provide international service to 19 countries, including Burundi, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

While the international voice services market is expected to be worth more than $70 billion, for most large carriers, international service is not core, and generally represents about 5% of revenues. At the same time, the cost of maintaining global service operations is disproportionately high. This is why large carriers, in every region of the world, continue to outsource increasing amounts of international traffic to efficient, Tier-1 quality VoIP carriers like iBasis. iBasis is one of the world's twenty largest carriers of international traffic¹ and carries millions of minutes of voice traffic every day for the world's largest carriers.

About iBasis

Founded in 1996, iBasis (Nasdaq: IBAS) is the leader in advanced Internet-based voice communications. iBasis delivers toll quality international voice services and provides the infrastructure for hosted communications solutions, including messaging and speech-enabled content, e-commerce and customer service applications. The company's customers include many of the largest enterprises and carriers in the world, including AT&T, Cable & Wireless, China Mobile, China Unicom, Concert, ExxonMobil, Gannett, H&R Block, Home Shopping Network, Morgan Stanley, NTT, Sabre Group, Sprint, Telstra, Telefonica, Western Union, WorldCom, and Verizon. iBasis' hosted, enhanced service solutions include SpeechPortTM, a scalable, customizable ASP environment for speech-enabled business solutions, VoCore^SM messaging and the IP CallCardTM pre- and post-paid calling card platform. The iBasis Network is the world's largest international Cisco Powered Network for Internet Telephony. iBasis is listed in both the Russell 2000® and Russell 3000® Indexes. The company can be reached at its worldwide headquarters in Burlington, Mass., USA at 781-505-7500 or on the Internet at http://www.ibasis.net .

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Assured Quality Routing and iBasis are registered marks, VoCore is a service mark, The iBasis Network, Internet Central Office, Internet Branch Office, IP CallCard, SpeechPort, IPort, and PriceInteractive are trademarks of iBasis, Inc. or its subsidiaries. Cisco and Cisco Powered Network are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Except for historical information, all of the expectations, projections and assumptions contained in the foregoing press release, including those relating to the company's current expectations regarding revenue growth, sources of revenue, margin improvement and future capital expenditures constitute forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, (i) the extent of adoption of the company's voice-based Internet services and the timing and amount of revenue generated by these services; (ii) fluctuations in the market for and pricing of VoIP services; and (iii) the other considerations described as "Risk Factors" in iBasis' Annual Report on Form 10-K for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2000, and the company's other SEC filings.