8x8, provider of Packet8 residential announces the addition of more than 1,000 new businesses during the fourth quarter of 2006 to its rapidly growing base of Packet8 Virtual Office VoIP Hosted PBX phone service subscribers.

Over 6,000 U.S. based companies ranging in size from three to 250 employees now subscribe to the Packet8 Virtual Office solution which combines unlimited local and long distance calling in the United States and Canada with advanced PBX calling features. Unlike comparably priced single line VoIP phone services which offer features more suited to individual residential users, Packet8 Virtual Office provides companies with complete business functionality along with the flexibility to operate from numerous geographically dispersed locations.

"The combined features, benefits and cost advantages inherent in the Packet8 Virtual Office service consistently place it ahead of competitive VoIP and non-VoIP offerings," said 8x8 Vice President of Sales and Marketing Huw Rees. "We are particularly pleased that the average number of lines sold to each new business has been rising each quarter and was over nine lines per business last quarter. We have also started to sell more systems into the 50 plus employee businesses and we expect this trend to continue as we enhance the features and functionality of Virtual Office as well as providing the best possible quality and reliability."

Virtual Office is an affordable, easy-to-use alternative to traditional PBX phone systems, allowing users anywhere in the world to be part of a VoIP- hosted virtual phone system. The service includes an auto attendant, extension dialing, business class voicemail, a full featured conference bridge and ring groups, in addition to a rich variety of other business class PBX and dial tone features not normally found on premise-based PBX systems. Virtual Office reduces an organization's telecommunications total cost of ownership because of its minimal initial investment combined with unlimited local and long distance business calling in the United States and Canada and access to Packet8's low international rates.