Newport Becomes First Session Border Controller Vendor to Comply with UK VoIP Interconnect Standards

Caldicot, UK, 29th March, 2006. Newport Networks, a leading developer of carrier-class Session Border Controllers, has announced that it will be the first session border controller vendor to comply with the forthcoming Network Interoperability Consultative Committee (NICC) requirements for interconnect of real time traffic over IP.

The UK will become the first major market to deliver regulated inter Service Provider VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) interconnect anywhere in the world where the end user and the operator do not experience any change in service behaviour. The NICC standards are based on the principles of Release 1 TISPAN (an industry standards body) specifications, which separate the session border controller function into a signalling boundary function and a media boundary function.

Initially PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) services will be defined, with other multimedia service types defined later as required by the industry. The NICC-defined interconnect is designed to enable the UK to migrate its current PSTN and ISDN traffic to IP, which massively increases the scale and performance requirements for border devices managing this traffic.

"We are extremely proud to be the first vendor to announce NICC compliance," commented Mike Wilkinson, Vice President of Marketing at Newport Networks. "Our close involvement with the NICC over the past twelve months has allowed Newport to work on NICC-specific features in the 1460 product family."

The Newport Networks 1460 product family includes both Signalling and Media Border Functions that can be deployed in a number of ways to meet the requirements of NICC and UK service provider PSTN emulation VoIP interconnect. The H.248 capabilities of the product allow a range of evolutionary deployment scenarios as standards become available and deployed. The 1460 products enable carrier resilience to be deployed with a number of multi-node mechanisms to create a VoIP-based PSTN service as good as, or better than, current PSTN practice and at a much lower cost.

The separation of media and signalling can mean that a failure at the media level is not detected by the network and will impact the user. Newport will be implementing media monitoring and signalling monitoring with reporting to the interconnect Softswitch to allow operators to determine where failures have occurred and to automate corrective action. This is critical if service levels are to be maintained at a level consistent with the current PSTN "five 9s" or greater reliability criteria.

About Newport Networks

Newport Networks Group PLC, listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange, has designed and developed the award winning 1460 session border controller. The 1460 session border controller addresses the key service delivery issues of quality and security, enabling service providers to create new revenue streams from VoIP and MoIP while controlling the cost of delivery. Newport Networks' product innovations and leadership have been recognised through Frost & Sullivan's 2006 IP Communications Next-Generation Carrier Infrastructure Entrepreneurial Company of the Year award and Internet Telephony magazine's Product of the Year 2005 award. Newport Networks' commitment to deliver the highest quality products and services is demonstrated by the company becoming the first independent session border controller vendor to achieve ISO 9001:2000 certification. Based in the UK, France, North America and China, Newport Networks is led by an experienced team with a proven track record of identifying new service provider network technologies, developing products and managing the growth of international businesses. Further information at www.newport-networks.com