Industry Leaders Advance Open Settlement Protocol IP Telephony Standard
[Thanks to Jack Sman on the Ftel Thread]
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 2, 1998--
3Com, Cisco, GRIC, iPass, and TransNexus agree to support
the Open Settlement Protocol
Industry leaders 3Com Corporation, Cisco, GRIC Communications, iPass, and
TransNexus have teamed up to promote inter-domain authentication,
authorization and accounting standards for IP telephony through the Open
Settlement Protocol (OSP).
OSP allows a clearinghouse to provide call routing and authorization between
carriers. In addition, OSP provides usage reporting through call detail
records. Without OSP, there is no open standard solution to perform these
functions.
In addition to the overwhelming support of these industry leaders, OSP has
been defined within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's
(ETSI) project TIPHON, chartered to establish global standards for Internet
telephony. "The industry realizes that ubiquitous interconnection will
drive market demand, adoption and growth of IP telephony products and
services, and OSP is a critical step in realizing the full potential of IP
telephony," says Stephen Thomas, ETSI's editor for this standard and chair
of the Voice over IP Forum.
Major benefits of OSP include:
-- Confidentiality of all information through Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL) encryption
-- Secure, mutual authentication of communicating parties
-- Non-repudiation of all communications through digital signature
technology
-- Supports operation through existing firewalls
-- Flexible and feature rich information exchange via eXtensible
Markup Language (XML)
About 3Com
3Com Corporation enables individuals and organizations worldwide to stay
more connected by communicating and sharing information and resources
anytime, anywhere. As one of the world's preeminent suppliers of data,
voice and video communications technology, 3Com has delivered networking
solutions to more than 100 million customers worldwide. The company
provides large enterprise, small and medium enterprise, carriers and network
service providers, and consumers with comprehensive, innovative information
access products and system solutions for building intelligent, reliable and
high performance local and wide area networks. For further information,
visit 3Com's World Wide Web site at 3com.com or the press site at
http//www.3com.com/pressbox.
About Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc.
(NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News
and information are available at cisco.com.
About GRIC
GRIC Communications, Inc. is the leader in providing an integrated, global
IP infrastructure for secure settlement, network management, roaming, fax
and telephony services at competitive rates. The more than 350 worldwide
telcos, PTTs and ISPs in the GRIC alliance deploy GRIC's IP infrastructure
to integrate traditional services with Internet telecommunications. Complex
tasks performed on this platform include authentication, flexible routing,
settlement, provisioning, billing, customer service and self-service
automation. Privately held, GRIC Communications has offices in the U.S.,
Asia and Europe. For additional information, visit GRIC's Web site at
www.gric.com.
About iPass Inc.
iPass, the "Access Anywhere" company, is the premier settlement and
clearinghouse service that unlocks the power of the Internet backbone for
low-cost global communications. Through an alliance with the leading
network providers around the world, iPass enables ISPs to provide easy and
secure Internet access with a local call though more than 2,700 access
points in 150 countries. iPass is the proven standard for global Internet
roaming and corporate remote access/VPN solutions and the company's
clearinghouse platform is used to enable IP telephony, IP fax and other
emerging Internet-based services. iPass is headquartered in Mountain View,
CA and additional information can be found at ipass.com.
About TransNexus
TransNexus provides the first real-time brokering of interconnectivity
through an open, non-exclusive clearinghouse service. This service targets
IP telephony gateway operators seeking and/or providing termination services
for IP voice and fax communications. TransNexus authenticates, authorizes
and records the calling traffic between unaffiliated gateways, and provides
reconciliation and settlement of all inter-gateway termination fees. For
additional information visit transnexus.com.
CONTACT: Manning, Selvage & Lee, Atlanta
Debbie Sorokin, 404-875-1444
dsorokin@mslpr.com
or
TransNexus, Atlanta
Stephen Thomas, 404-872-4745
stephen.thomas@transnexus.com
09:16 EDT SEPTEMBER 2, 1998
*** end of story *** |
