CT LABS LAUNCHES ULTRA-HIGH DENSITY VOIP TEST FACILITY FOR EVALUATION AND BENCHMARKING OF CARRIER-CLASS EQUIPMENT AND ENHANCED IP SERVICES

(Rocklin, CA)  February 22, 2005  —  CT Labs^TM, a leading center for testing and evaluation of voice over IP (VoIP) and other next-generation network equipment and services, today announced the launch of the industry’s first ultra high-density (UHD) facility for independent evaluation of VoIP infrastructure equipment and services.  The new UHD test environment is capable of scaling up to 100,000 VoIP endpoints, with support for SIP, H.323, MGCP, MEGACO and other next-generation network protocols, across TDM and IP domains.

 The facility is targeted specifically to VoIP/TDM equipment manufacturers and service providers seeking to validate equipment performance in “real world” network environments, characterized by tens of thousands of circuits/VoIP endpoints and complex call flow scenarios.  Options include functional, interoperability, conformance, regression, performance and scalability testing.

 "As the leading developer of session border controllers, we know that equipment scalability and performance, under real-world peak call loads, is of major importance to our customers when selecting equipment.  We feel the CT Labs announcement is quite significant,” said Jim Hourihan, vice president, marketing and product management, Acme Packet.  “The creation of an independent ultra high density lab facility that truly reflects the network conditions anticipated by service providers under full deployment allows equipment manufacturers like Acme Packet to provide enhanced benchmark data to prospects and customers. This new testing capability also fills a true gap in the lab testing options that have been available to companies like our own." 

 For service providers, including ILECs, CLECs, wireless carriers and MSOs, UHD testing at CT Labs provides a powerful alternative to standard pre-cutover testing at actual customer sites, minimizing the risk of costly failures in the field.

 For manufacturers of next-gen networking equipment, including media gateways, softswitches, session border controllers, media servers, and application layer gateways, UHD testing can be used to verify call-handling at performance levels previously unavailable in test labs, QA and testing offload, and automation for regression baselining.  For such tests, CT Labs acts as an extension of equipment manufacturers’ Q/A departments, working with them on pre-release as well as production products to define and execute UHD performance tests.

 “The unique capabilities of CT Labs’ new UHD test facility mark a true industry ‘first,” allowing equipment manufacturers and their customers to effectively evaluate carrier-class performance in the context of a fully-staged, real world network, prior to deployment” said Chris Bajorek, founder and director of CT Labs.  “Competitive forces are accelerating the pace of next-gen network deployment.  At the same time, marketers and users of this equipment face a growing array of performance claims and choices. UDH test results from CT Labs can assist vendors in differentiating their products and help customers separate performance fact from fiction when making critical capex decisions.”

 Speech quality performance verification will be a central component of all UHD testing, and the capabilities of the new lab permit real-time validation of speech quality, at maximum call rates. The new facility also enables CT Labs to perform functional testing, including full verification of call-handling applications such as voice messaging, conferencing, IVR, and other media server applications, concurrently with UHD verification of call-handling performance.  Calls from highly scriptable VoIP and TDM call generation platforms can be intermixed with UHD test call loads to verify specific application performance under peak traffic conditions.

 While the primary focus of the UHD lab is the testing of IP-enabled services drawing the simulation tools from a variety of vendors, TDM connectivity remains a critical requirement in converged network environments.  CT Labs is also expanding its capabilities to increase TDM call generation capacity, with support for a wide range of trunking and signaling protocols, to enable hybrid UHD TDM-VoIP performance and call-handling testing of media gateways and other related network elements.

 Additional information on UHD testing is available by contacting Chris Bajorek at (916) 577-2110 or chrisb@ct-labs.com.  Additional information on CT Labs is available on the Web at www.ct-labs.com. 

About CT Labs

Established in 1998, CT Labs is a recognized pioneer in the development and execution of VoIP and TDM-related tests to validate and assess network elements and networks, and has been selected to conduct numerous private tests and public test events, as well as comparative testing for leading industry media organizations.  CT Labs is an independent operating unit of Empirix, Inc.

 About Empirix

Empirix delivers a comprehensive range of testing and monitoring solutions that assure the performance of next-generation networks, contact centers, and Web-based applications. Empirix provides products, services, and support to thousands of customers worldwide, including Global 2000 enterprises, network equipment manufacturers, and service providers. Headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, Empirix is a privately held company, with offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.empirix.com.

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 Empirix and CT Labs are trademarks or registered trademarks of Empirix Inc. in the United States and other countries.  All other names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.