Internet phone service, a key next-generation telecom service based on digital technologies and created by combining audio with data, is anticipated to have a significant impact on contemporary lifestyles. According to a recent study released by Korea Internet Data Center (KIDC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Dacom Corp., the Internet phone service market, whose revenues stood at 63.5 billion won (approx. $61.95 million) in 2003, is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 66.3 percent for the next four years, and surpass one trillion won by 2009. Against this background, Samsung Networks, the nation's top provider of corporate Internet services, aims to continue expanding its presence in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market based on the technological prowess and know-how the company has accumulated through its Internet telephony business. Samsung Networks, which launched the country's first VoIP service for enterprise users, has so far signed up over 1,000 business customers including Daewoo Securities, Dorco, Taepyongyang Group, DPI and Coca Cola Korea. Anticipating numerous changes in the corporate Internet phone business starting this year, Samsung Networks is keen to maintain its leading position with its 'smart VoIP service for enterprise users,' which provides a variety of services through the Internet and enables customers to save up to 70% of service fees compared to services presently available on the market. Busy preparing for the commercial launch of the '070 Internet telephony service' to its corporate customers, Samsung Networks is presently engaged in the development of more convenient Internet phone services including its 'premium caller ID', groupware link notification, mail alarm, video conferencing and voice recognition suite of services. Explaining that the first mission of service operators is to thoroughly inform their customers about the concept of Internet phone service and its numerous benefits, Park Yang-kyu, CEO of Samsung Networks has demonstrated his commitment to "acting as the vanguard in opening and expanding markets in the Internet phone business", based upon the same capabilities that helped Samsung gain leadership of the corporate VoIP market. Late last year, Samsung Networks won its Internet telephony service quality certification, enabling the company to develop and launch its '070' Internet telephony service. To be approved for the 070 Internet telephony service, a service carrier is required to enhance voice quality to more than 70 of R Factor, an international voice quality standard set by ITU-T, the telecom standardization organization of the International Telecommunication Union. The end-to-end delay, which is the time spent for signals to reaching from one end of a delivery system to another, also must be within 150ms, with a call success rate of more than 95%. Instead of public-switched telephone networks (PSTNs), Internet Telephony (VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol) uses Internet links connected across the world to provide phone service. Calls made over Internet lines are connected to an Internet service provider. If one party is connected to a PSTN, the call will be connected over the Internet through a nearby telephone station, and then switched to PSTN through the other party's phone. The Internet phone market presently centers on business customers that make many calls a day rather than individual users. Internet telephony service is seen as useful for businesses that make calls between local and overseas branches. Long-distance callers who live apart from families and students studying abroad will also find the services cost-effective. In the meantime, Samsung Electronics, the world's second-largest vender of mobile handsets after Nokia, expects at least 20 percent of the world's corporate telephone systems to be eventually replaced by IP-based Internet phones.