[April 27, 1999]

3Com IP Telephony Gateway Supports Multi-Vendor Interoperability Standards

3Com Corporation announced its support for the iNOW! (interoperability NOW!) Profile in its family of award-winning Total Control IP telephony gateways. iNOW! is a broad-based, multi- vendor initiative established to quickly provide interoperability among IP telephony platforms. The iNOW Profile provides the industry's first guidelines for IP telephony compatibility among multiple vendors. The profile, spearheaded by ITXC and other major industry players, is based on the H.323V2 and the upcoming H.225.0 Annex G standard protocols for gateway-to-gateway communications.

3Com's Total Control multi-service access solution will meet the requirements of the iNOW! Profile through an easy and seamless software upgrade, expected to be generally available by the end of 1999.

"3Com's carrier solutions have consistently been built on open industry standards," said Houman Modarres, director, product management, IP Telephony, 3Com Carrier Systems. "By supporting the iNOW! initiative, 3Com will continue in this tradition and further foster its commitment to interoperability and the global deployment of IP-based telephony services."

"As a result, 3Com and its service provider customers are one step closer to building converged network infrastructures of voice, fax and data applications, and helping users become more connected to next-generation central office equipment," Modarres added.

The International Telephone Union (ITU) has established the guidelines for IP telephony via the H.323 standards document. Many vendors have announced their support of H.323 standards, but unfortunately compliance to these standards does not ensure true interoperability between the major IP telephony vendors products and carrier networks. This is because H.323 is a broad standard that permits IP telephony equipment vendors to choose among many options when creating products. As a result, IP telephony service providers have had to choose between dependence on a single vendor or operating multiple parallel networks of incompatible gateways. The iNOW! Profile is important for the industry because it details the development options to use within H.323 that will lead to the rapid deployment of compatible IP telephony components from numerous vendors.

In addition to 3Com, other corporations which have announced support of the iNOW! interoperability initiative include Alcatel, Analogic, Ascend, AudioCodes, Cisco, Clarent, Dialogic, Ericsson, Interline, ITXC, Linkon, Lucent, Mier Communications, Natural MicroSystems, NetSpeak, OzEmail, QuesCom, Siemens Tundo and VocalTec.

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