net.com Customizes SHOUT Family to Deliver VoIP Migration Appliance (VMA)

Company Offers a More Viable Alternative to Enterprise VoIP Migration

Networld + Interop -- net.com (NYSE: NWK), a global supplier of communications equipment, announced today that several features on its SHOUT family of equipment have been customized for the large global enterprise seeking to migrate to voice over IP (VoIP) in a safe, secure and sound manner. The SHOUT VMA is immediately available for delivery.

Stephen T. Gleave, vice president of marketing with net.com, said, "We offer an alternative to today's limited and expensive choices of upgrading the legacy PBX with an IP card, or 'rip and replace' of the existing TDM infrastructure. We believe our more viable option of VoIP migration, enabling companies to cap investment in legacy gear, control bandwidth costs, and contain the expense of network upgrades, could become the first choice for large, multinational corporations."

International market research and consulting firm, Infonetics Research, has just completed its 2005 User Plans for IP Voice survey and Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data, noted, "One of the top strategies being employed by large corporations we interviewed is to IP-enable their existing TDM infrastructure to start realizing some of the benefits of VoIP. In essence, the research reveals that a majority of large corporations want to migrate sensibly towards VoIP, and are in search of best strategies to do so."

net.com's SHOUT VMA provides viable VoIP migration by allowing companies to keep and continue using most of their existing equipment; reduces bandwidth requirements; offers a rich security solution; and permits number portability with unique and easy to use programming features.

SHOUT Customized for the Enterprise:

Advanced voice features

SHOUT's exclusive BSP (BESTflow Signaling Protocol) enables high-efficient voice transport across the IP network that significantly reduces the packet load and bandwidth requirements on the LAN and WAN infrastructures, ultimately lowering the initial capital expenditure required before VoIP can be deployed on the network. Additionally, SHOUT incorporates powerful yet easy to use routing tables that mimic familiar TDM or IP trunk group features of a PBX. A Link Quality Manager (LQM) assures quality of voice delivery by constantly monitoring and instantly re-routing packet-based voice traffic over alternative paths if network performance degrades.

Multi-protocol and supplemental service support

SHOUT's enhanced interworking with a wide variety of voice and IP protocols, including ISDN, NI-2, CAS, R2, Q.SIG, H.323 and SIP, and SIP over TCP, offers one of the most comprehensive sets of switching capabilities available today. SHOUT interoperates with and offers any-to-any conversion between these protocols. SHOUT also effectively transports PBX vendors' proprietary IP protocols, such as Avaya's DCS/DCS+, Siemens' Cor-Net, Alcatel's ABC, Mitel's MSDN, and Nortel's MCDN systems.

Machowinski also noted that Infonetics' research shows that security concerns have increased for enterprises, while at the same time noting fewer elements are preferred to multiple single-point solutions that can create a network management nightmare.

SHOUT addresses security from both element and call perspectives with multiple enhanced features: sRTP: SHOUT provides encryption of real-time protocol media streams.

Rogue Packet Ejector: SHOUT's RPE is a rock-solid firewall that prevents direct denial of service (DDOS) attacks that can bring down an IP network.

Transport Layer Security: Used to encrypt the open SIP signaling, TLS prevents tracing and trapping of a voice stream to guard identity and information.

MD5 Authentication: on a call-by-call basis, SHOUT prevents spoofing and phishing by challenging devices that are attempting to call the network and verifying responses against an internal table or an external database.

Smart Card Authentication: organizations that leverage smart card technology to protect access to the IT infrastructure will be able to use the same technology with SHOUT VMAs.

Future-proofing

In early trials, SHOUT has demonstrated its effectiveness as a voice platform with Microsoft's Active Directory, Live Communications Server 2005, and Office Communicator platforms, providing uninterrupted service to users. This joint solution provides great potential to large enterprises looking to take advantage of the long-promised productivity gains of VoIP.

By deploying SHOUT as a migration strategy, enterprises can achieve the cost savings benefits of more efficient bandwidth utilization and lower toll costs, and can retain existing PBX equipment, thus allowing them to maximize their return on investment and to retain critical feature sets in their networks.

About net.com

Network Equipment Technologies, doing business as net.com, is a leading provider of networking equipment that enables enterprises, governments and carriers to adapt to a broadband future. An architect of the networking industry, net.com has been supplying service providers, governments and enterprises around the world with bulletproof networking technology for more than 20 years. net performance. net results. net.com.

Visit www.net.com for more information.

net.com and SHOUT are trademarks of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc.

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