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IDT history
IDT company history timeline
IDT was founded by entrepreneur Howard Jonas in August 1990.
International Telephone Callback Service: 1990-93
By the end of 1991 the company had 150 customers, some of them Fortune 500 firms, such as PepsiCo, Inc.
The company's first customer was NBC, which needed to be in frequent contact with a three-man team in Barcelona, Spain, preparing for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games.
In 1992 International Discount Telecommunications relocated its headquarters in the windowless, two-story, cement-block Hackensack building where it had placed the call receptors.
The company also got a boost when the Federal Communications Commission denied AT & T Corp.'s 1992 petition to ban callback services.
By the spring of 1993 Jonas claimed that his company was taking in $400,000 a month in revenue from more than 1,000 customers in about 60 countries.
International Discount Telecommunications used the expertise derived from, and the calling volume generated by, its call-reorigination business to enter the domestic long-distance business in late 1993 by reselling the long-distance services of other carriers to its domestic customers.
1993: IDT becomes a wholesale carrier for domestic customers.
International Discount Telecommunications had revenue of $3.17 million in fiscal 1994 (the year ended July 31, 1994), about half from domestic long-distance service.
As a value-added service for these customers, the company began offering Internet access in early 1994.
1994: The company begins offering dial-up Internet access.
Revenue more than tripled in fiscal 1995, to $10.8 million, but rising expenses resulted in a loss of $2.15 million.
1995: Company is renamed IDT Corporation.
In August 1996 the company introduced PC2Phone, which it called the first commercial telephone service to connect calls between personal computers and telephones over the Internet.
Revenue shot up fivefold in fiscal 1996, reaching $57.69 million, of which Internet, rather than telephone, service accounted for about 40 percent.
There were about 350,000 customers for that service in late 1997, when IDT introduced Net2Phone Direct, which enabled users to make both international and domestic calls over the Internet using standard telephones.
IDT's revenues doubled in fiscal 1997, to $135.19 million, and its loss decreased to $3.84 million.
IDT sold another 4.6 million shares of stock to the public in January 1998 at $24.88 a share.
Jonas held 32.2 percent of the stock in December 1999.
In 1999 it launched DebitalK, its first prepaid callback phone card.
In March 2000 Net2Phone Inc. had a market value of $2.6 billion&mdashout twice that of IDT itself.
COMPANY NEWSCOMPANY NEWS; IDT UNIT IS BUYING MAJORITY STAKE IN ANIMATION COMPANYIDT is buying 51 percent stake in Film Roman, animator of TV programs The Simpsons and King of the Hill, for $900,000 in cash and credit line of about $2.1 million (S)By Bloomberg NewsMay 16, 2003
Zedge was founded by Kenneth Sundnes, Tom Arnøy, and Paul Shaw in Norway in 2003.
COMPANY NEWSCOMPANY NEWS; IDT CORPORATION WILL CUT MORE JOBS AT WINSTAR UNITIDT Corp will eliminate unspecified number of jobs in its Winstar Holdings telecommunications unit (S)By Bloomberg NewsJune 11, 2004
COMPANY NEWSCOMPANY NEWS; IDT TO OPEN CENTER IN IRELAND WITH 300 JOBSIDT Corp, provider of calling cards and phone services, will create 300 jobs at customer service center in Ireland for its European phone business Toucan (S)By Bloomberg NewsApril 1, 2005
Zedge was purchased by IDT in December 2006.
In 2007, IDT acquired a controlling interest in Zedge.net, a social networking community for mobile users and platform for sharing free mobile content.
On September 14, 2009, IDT spun off CTM Media Holdings to its shareholders.
In 2009, IDT introduced Boss Revolution, a PIN-less international prepaid calling service.
IDT spun off Genie Energy to its shareholders on October 31, 2011.
Straight Path was spun off from IDT On July 31, 2013.
In October 2014, IDT sold Fabrix Systems, an Israel-based software company that developed and licenses a proprietary cloud based storage and computing platform, to Ericsson.
In February 2015 the company announced it had reached an agreement with Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (ETECSA), Cuba's national telecom provider, for international long distance telephony between the United States and Cuba directly.
Six years later, on April 3, 2015, CTM Media Holdings would announce it will continue operations under a new name, becoming IDW Media Holdings, which would continue to consist of the majority interest in IDW and CTM Media Group.
In 2015, IDT launched National Retail Solutions (NRS).
In January 2017, Net2Phone, subsidiary of IDT Corporation, acquired LiveNinja, a Miami-based messaging and live chat technology startup.
BitsDaily Report: A Crusader Against a Severe, Previously Unseen CyberattackA ransomware demand of a Newark firm, carried out with stolen federal cyberweapons, was a smoke screen for a frightening crime with higher stakes.By Pui-Wing TamJune 23, 2017
But two weeks earlier, one security expert found something a lot worse.By Nicole PerlrothLeer en españolJune 22, 2017
On 24 January 2018, IDT began a pilot test on using Ripple's native cryptocurrency.
In March 2018, IDT completed its spinoff of Rafael Holdings with IDT founder Howard Jonas serving as Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer Rafael Holdings holds commercial real estate assets and interests in two clinical stage, oncology focused pharmaceutical companies.
On April 20, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, IDT Corporation applied for and received a loan of US$10 million as part of the Paycheck Protection Program.
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IDT competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vonage | 2001 | $1.4B | 2,400 | 7 |
| U.S. Cellular | 1983 | $4.2B | 5,000 | - |
| AT&T | 1983 | $122.3B | 230,000 | 3,902 |
| Verizon Communications | 1983 | $134.8B | 132,200 | 87 |
| AUTOMATED DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES | - | $284.9K | 5 | - |
| Metro Pcs | - | - | - | - |
| Bloomberg | 1981 | $10.0B | 20,000 | 730 |
| Akritiv | 2009 | - | 10,002 | - |
| Net2Phone | 1990 | $185.0M | 200 | - |
| Cincinnati Bell | 1873 | $554.4M | 4,300 | 28 |
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of IDT, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about IDT. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at IDT. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by IDT. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of IDT and its employees or that of Zippia.
IDT may also be known as or be related to IDT, IDT CORP, IDT Corporation, IDT, Corp. and Idt Corporation.