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iBasis Launches PremiumCertified™ International Routing

Service Combines Certified Quality on International Routes, Real-time Performance Monitoring and Management for Retail Carriers, Mobile Carriers, and Broadband Voice Providers

BURLINGTON, MA— January 18, 2005 — iBasis, Inc. (OTCBB: IBAS), a leader in international long distance, VoIP, and prepaid calling cards, today announced the availability of PremiumCertified, a premium service designed to deliver the highest quality termination of international phone calls. iBasis offers PremiumCertified on a wholesale basis to traditional TDM carriers, mobile service providers, and providers of voice over broadband (VoBB) services, and uses the service for its own retail services.

PremiumCertified provides call termination to more than 500 international destinations through routes that iBasis has certified as matching or exceeding the company's Retail Quality Index™ (RQI). iBasis created the RQI by combining benchmark call completion and duration standards acquired from leading retail carriers and requirements from its existing retail customers. PremiumCertified routes are monitored in real time and actively managed by iBasis to consistently achieve performance within 5% of the RQI. The result is stable high quality over a large number of international destinations. More than half of the world's mobile subscribers can be reached via PremiumCertified routes to the Americas, Western Europe and Asia. PremiumCertified is designed specifically to meet the stringent requirements of retail carriers and their customers.

"In addition to establishing our own retail services, we have experienced strong growth in the retail traffic we carry for both our wholesale customers and emerging new providers like Skype," said Ofer Gneezy, president and CEO of iBasis. "As more and more international traffic is originated by alternative local carriers, mobile operators, and the emerging voice over broadband service providers, the demand for a premium retail product that consistently meets stringent quality requirements is growing. PremiumCertified enables us to fulfill that demand in a way that is easy and efficient for both existing and new customers."

PremiumCertified marks a dramatic development in iBasis' evolution from a pure wholesale carrier into a leading worldwide carrier of retail and wholesale voice traffic. Since beginning carrier operations in 1997, iBasis has carried more than 13 billion minutes of international calls over its global VoIP network and is one of the ten largest carriers of international voice traffic in the world . For three consecutive years service providers have named the Company as the best international wholesale carrier in ATLANTIC-ACM's annual International Wholesale Carrier Report Card . The PremiumCertified service has been successfully tested with several iBasis customers, including PTTs, mobile carriers, and voice over broadband providers.

In addition to carrying retail traffic for its carrier customers, iBasis recently launched its own retail services in the form of retail prepaid calling cards, which are sold through distributors in major metropolitan markets in the U.S., and Pingo, a direct-to-consumer service that enables consumers to purchase prepaid calling minutes via credit or debit card at www.pingo.com.

With PremiumCertified, iBasis is enhancing the quality of its existing retail services, as well as offering fixed, mobile, and broadband voice providers an alternative to costly Tier One international termination services. Moreover, by using iBasis' DirectVoIP™ interconnection service, which recently received a Product of the Year Award from INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine, providers can take full advantage of the lower cost VoIP infrastructure, while ensuring their customers receive the highest quality in international calling service.

Real-time Quality Monitoring

By monitoring the PremiumCertified routes 24/7 and in real time, iBasis network operations center (NOC) specialists are able to anticipate potential problems that may effect network performance, as well as instantaneously address trouble reports to maintain quality at the benchmark levels. In routing retail voice traffic, iBasis utilizes its direct interconnections to more than 100 countries as well as the direct interconnections of Tier One providers for overflow and destinations not directly accessible from the iBasis network. In the event of a network problem, the iBasis NOC reroutes traffic to other certified quality providers to ensure continued premium quality service.

About iBasis

Founded in 1996, iBasis (OTCBB: IBAS) is a leading wholesale carrier of international long distance telephone calls and a provider of retail prepaid calling services, including the Pingo™ (www.pingo.com) web-based offering and disposable calling cards, which are sold through major distributors and available at retail stores throughout the U.S. iBasis customers include many of the largest telecommunications carriers in the world, including AT&T, Cable & Wireless, China Mobile, China Unicom, MCI, Sprint, Telefonica, Telenor, and Telstra. iBasis has carried more than ten billion minutes of international VoIP traffic over its global Cisco Powered™ network, and is one of the ten largest carriers of international voice traffic in the world1. For three consecutive years service providers have named the Company as the best international wholesale carrier in ATLANTIC-ACM's annual International Wholesale Carrier Report Card2. iBasis was also ranked the #1 fastest-growing technology company in New England in the 2002 and 2003 Technology Fast 50 programs sponsored by Deloitte & Touche. The Company can be reached at its worldwide headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA at 781-505-7500 or on the Internet at www.ibasis.com

The New England Technology Fast 50 program is presented by Deloitte & Touche and Hale and Dorr, in association with the sponsor, Mazonson Inc. In addition, Mass High Tech and Trinity Communications are associated with the program.

Assured Quality Routing, ConnectPoint, and iBasis are registered marks, Pingo, DirectVoIP, The iBasis Network, Internet Central Office, Internet Branch Office, and IP CallCard are trademarks of iBasis, Inc. Cisco and Cisco Powered are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

   
 
 
     

 

 
 

1 Telegeography 2003 data compared with iBasis annualized Q1 2004 traffic volume.

2 ATLANTIC-ACM International Wholesale Carrier Report Card—2002, 2003, & 2004.

Assured Quality Routing and iBasis are registered marks, DirectVoIP and The iBasis Network are trademarks of iBasis, Inc. 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, profitability, future capital expenditures, and cash flows 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 services and the timing and amount of revenue and margin generated by these services; (ii) fluctuations in the market for and pricing of these services; and (iii) the other considerations described as "Risk Factors" in the Company's most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and the company's other SEC filings. We have no current intention to update any forward-looking statements.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Data
The Company provides certain financial data in addition to providing financial results in accordance with GAAP. This data is not in accordance with, or an alternative to GAAP, and may be different from Non-GAAP financial data used by other companies. This Non-GAAP financial data includes average revenue per minute, which the Company believes provides useful information, to both its management and investors about the Company's current performance.