iBASIS is a communications solutions provider based in Lexington, Massachusetts. iBASIS represents an estimated USD 1+ billion in annual revenue, and is the third largest wholesale voice operator, ranks Top 3 LTE IPX vendor, serves 1,000+ customers worldwide and brings together 300 employees across 18 offices worldwide. iBASIS offers voice, mobile data, and IoT services. In February 2019, iBASIS was acquired by Tofane Global from KPN. More than 1,000 mobile and fixed line telecommunications carriers and service providers worldwide outsource some or all of their international voice traffic to iBASIS. It is one of the largest carriers of international voice traffic in the world. iBASIS customers include many of the world’s largest carriers, mobile operators, and emerging service providers including Verizon, Vodafone, VSNL, China Mobile, China Unicom, IDT, Qwest, Skype, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica. The company also offers online pre-paid international calling services to business and consumer customers through a product called Pingo.
History
iBASIS was founded in 1996 by Ofer Gneezy and Gordon VanderBrug to provide wholesale international long distance services to carriers using Voice over Internet Protocol technology. It held an initial public offering in November 1999 and was ranked the No. 1 fastest growing company in New England for 2000, 2001 and 2002 by Deloitte & Touche. In October 2007, iBASIS acquired KPN Global Carrier Services, the international voice business of KPN, the national carrier of the Netherlands. KPN became a majority stockholder of iBASIS as part of the transaction. The combined entity carried nearly 24 billion minutes of international voice traffic in 2007. According to international telecom research firm TeleGeography, that resulting traffic made the new iBASIS one of the three largest carriers of international voice traffic in the world, handling a volume roughly equal to AT&T’s international voice traffic and behind worldwide leader Verizon. In April 2008, iBASIS also acquired the international wholesale voice business of TDC A/S, a Danish carrier, for $10 million cash, which added 2 billion minutes of annual traffic and was estimated to increase annual revenues by $80 million. On December 21, 2009 iBASIS became a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal KPN N.V., the national carrier of the Netherlands and a provider of fixed, mobile, and enterprise communications solutions in Europe. iBASIS is no longer a publicly traded company. On February 8, 2019 KPN completed the sale of its iBASIS wholesale division to Tofane Global, led by Alexandre Pébereau. With Tofane’s prior acquisition of Altice Europe N.V in September 2018, the combined company is now the third largest wholesale voice operator, with revenues of more than $1 billion a year.
Network and Technology
The iBASIS Network includes an international VoIP network with more than 1,000 points of presence in over 100 countries. iBASIS uses technology from Cisco Systems and GenBand and has developed its own monitoring and route quality management systems to determine and select a suitable route for every call. The company has introduced technological advancements and is using GSM Association’s IP eXchange, which is being developed as a global IP backbone for fixed and mobile service providers. In 2017, iBASIS introduced their Global Access for Things™ service, a global mobile connectivity and network level data analysis solution for things worldwide. With the use of GSMA standards based eUICC or “eSIM” technology, the Global Access for Things™ service is capable of connecting smart devices to over 700 mobile networks worldwide. The next generation “eSIM” technology both allows for the credentials of a mobile network operator in the country or region to be remotely programmed on the smart device, and enables data access in the local area and therefore lower latency with much improved user experience.
