Stock Watch: AT&T Investment Lifts Net2Phone

Net2Phone Inc. (Nasdaq: NTOP) rose 4 to 30 Friday after AT&T Corp. (NYSE: ATT) invested $1.4 billion in the Hackensack, New Jersey-based company, which provides low-cost phone service over the Internet.

AT&T bought 4 million Class A shares from the company at $75 apiece, and also purchased 14.9 million shares from IDT Corp. (Nasdaq: IDTC) for the same price. The communications giant now has a 39 percent voting stake in Net2Phone.

"Working together, AT&T and Net2Phone can develop an exciting new generation of communications services,'' said John Petrillo, executive vice president of corporate strategy and development for AT&T. "We're confident that businesses and consumers will find new Internet voice applications quite valuable."

The companies said one of their goals is to create standards for voice enabling the Internet.