Ascend announces first commercial roll out of Voice Over IP
Ascend Announces First Commercial Roll Out of
Voice Over IP With MultiVoice for the MAX
Business Wire - March 30, 1998 08:45
%ASCEND ASND %CALIFORNIA %COMPUTERS
%ELECTRONICS %COMED %TELECOMMUNICATIONS
%PRODUCT V%BW P%BW
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 1998--
Meets Key Prerequisites for Scalability, Low Price per Port, and
Service Level Choices
Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) today introduced
MultiVoice for the MAX, the first voice over IP product that meets all
of the requirements for handling Toll-Quality Voice over IP -- low
price per port, scalability, and multiple Quality of Services (QoS)
levels, including Ascend's new Absolute QoS, which provides toll
quality voice over IP networks. MultiVoice Voice over IP (VoIP) is
already deployed in several service provider networks and will begin
volume shipments in April, making this the first scalable commercial
voice over IP solution in the marketplace. (Editors' Note: This
announcement is a part of Ascend's three-phase MultiVoice
strategy, also announced today.)
MultiVoice for the MAX offers a lower price per port and higher
scalability than other systems that are either PC-based or
router-based. PC-based solutions are less integrated and more
expensive, and router-based solutions have limited port densities.
The MultiVoice Gateway supports up to 96 ports per chassis today,
and 672 in the future.
Another important requirement to run Voice over IP is the ability to
provide Absolute QoS. Using Ascend's enhanced IP Navigator, the
company will offer the industry's first solution that will provide
toll-quality voice over a scalable network. (See related press
release, Ascend Makes Quality of Service for IP WANs a
Commercial Reality, announced today.)
MultiVoice for the MAX platform conforms to the ITU-T H.323
industry standard for handling real-time voice over IP-based packet
networks. MultiVoice also incorporates enhanced features, including
user authentication, voice VPN support for private voice over IP
networks, and interfaces to third-party billing systems.
Plus, MultiVoice for the MAX incorporates service quality features,
including echo cancellation and DTMF detection and generation for
emulation of the public switched telephone network.
"We have already installed and are working with the MultiVoice for
the MAX product and it is even better than we anticipated," says
Paul McGovern, International Marketing Director at ISPtel. "Ascend
didn't just make this work from a technical standpoint, they also
delivered the low price per port, scalability and service flexibility that
we needed to make voice over IP a viable business offering."
"Everyone is talking about voice over IP, but Ascend has quietly
gone ahead and actually implemented it with their ISPs," says Jeff
Pulver, President and CEO at pulver.com. "What makes this so
noteworthy is that they didn't just go for the technical breakthrough,
they brought a commercially well-tuned, fully featured product to the
marketplace. That's going to make all the difference in whether voice
over IP takes off in the next year."
"Voice over IP is a major strategic initiative for most service
providers," says Jose Garcia, senior product manager at Ascend. "It
is the next major milestone in the evolution of the Internet, and it will
enable service providers to dramatically restructure their service
offerings to customers. We didn't just want to be first to market, we
wanted to be best in market. As it happens, we accomplished both."
Ascend's Three-Phase MultiVoice Strategy
The MultiVoice for the MAX and the IPQoS launches are Phase One
of Ascend's three-phase, MultiVoice strategy. Between now and
the end of the year, the company will announce capabilities for
delivering voice and fax over IP and Frame Relay, Voice over ATM,
and the interoperability required to deliver voice across these
networks, the PSTN, and SS7-based networks.
Ascend is uniquely positioned to deliver a voice over data solution
because the company's product line extends from the customer
premise to the central office and points of presence. Ascend's
solutions will also have the manageability, scalability, quality and low
cost required to make voice over data networks as practical and
ubiquitous as voice over the PSTN.
The MultiVoice Components
The MultiVoice solution consists of a MultiVoice Gateway that
provides the interface between the PSTN and IP network, and the
MultiVoice Access Manager that handles routing of voice calls over
the IP network. MultiVoice is based on the standard MAX chassis,
which is already homologated for broad international use.
MultiVoice for the MAX will initially be available as a
phone-to-phone voice-gateway. The voice-only gateway is based
on Ascend's industry leading MAX platform with add-on voice DSP
cards and H.323 embedded software. The multi-application model
supports simultaneous phone-to-phone voice, PC-to-phone voice,
fax, and remote access applications within the same MAX chassis.
The MultiVoice Gateway works in conjunction with a centralized
MultiVoice Access Manager in order to complete voice calls across
an IP packet network. The Access Manager makes voice over IP
work seamlessly by providing the necessary user authentication and
telephone number-to-IP address translation functions required for
voice network access and call termination at the proper destination
gateway. The Access Manager is an H.323-compliant gatekeeper
implementation.
Pricing and Availability
Release 1.0 of the MultiVoice Gateway will support
phone-to-phone voice communications and will be offered in
different voice port bundles on Ascend's new, high-performance
MAX 6000 platform. The bundles include a 48- and 96-port T1
bundle and a 60- and 90-port E1 bundle. List price for these bundles
will range between $677 and $750 (U.S.) per port for a complete
gateway system (MAX 6000 chassis, voice DSP port cards, and
MultiVoice software).
In addition to these bundles, a 16-port T1 and E1 QuickStart system
will also be offered for voice over IP trials and low-end
configurations.
The Release 1.0 MultiVoice VoIP feature is also being offered as an
upgrade to an existing MAX 4000 chassis. The upgrade requires
dedicating the MAX 4000 to the voice over IP application and the
chassis can be populated with 16-port, 12-port, or 8-port voice DSP
cards. The list price for the software upgrade is $3,000 (U.S.) and the
voice port DSP cards are sold separately.
The MultiVoice Access Manager software is a Windows NT v4.0
application and will work with Windows-NT compliant Intel Pentium
PC servers. The Access Manager software license is based on the
number of MultiVoice Gateway's in an IP network. The Access
Manager software will be offered as a four, 32, and 128 gateway
configurations for $3,000, $15,000, and $30,000 (U.S.), respectively.
Software upgrades from the four and 32 gateway versions will also
be available.
The Release 1.0 MultiVoice Gateway and Access Manager will
begin shipment in April 1998. The multi-application MultiVoice
Gateway will be available this summer.
About Ascend Communications
Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufactures, sells and
services wide area networking solutions for telecommunications
carriers, Internet service providers and corporate customers
worldwide. For more information about Ascend and its products,
please visit the Ascend web site at www.ascend.com, or send
e-mail to info@ascend.com.
Ascend is headquartered at One Ascend Plaza, 1701 Harbor Bay
Parkway, Alameda, Calif. 94502-3002. Phone: 800/ASCEND4;
Fax: 510/747-2300. |
