Adax Launches Signaling Controller for PCI Express at 3GSM World Congress; HDCII-PCIe for New PC and Server Bus Capabilities.

BARCELONA, Spain -- Signaling provider, Adax Europe Ltd, is launching a version of its popular HDCII product in the new PCI Express form factor. The product has been developed to enable users to take advantage of the new PCI Express based systems being offered by leading PC and server manufacturers.

PCI Express was first introduced in 2002 to increase the performance of the PCI bus, and manufacturers such as HP, Dell, Sun and IBM have been quick to embrace the new standard. Most of these manufacturers are already shipping systems that use a mixture of PCI/PCI-X and PCI Express slots, a trend which Robin Kent, Director of European Operations for Adax, believes will continue to accelerate:

"The CPU used to be the most significant limitation in transaction based systems, but this has improved dramatically in recent years with new processor technology from Intel, Sun, AMD and others. Our customers see that the under-performance of the PCI bus is now starting to impact the performance of telecommunications applications, and PCI Express addresses this."

"Because the PCI Express bus can dramatically improve system performance, the major vendors all recognise the value this offers to their customers. Consequently, it will be all but impossible to find new systems using just PCI slots within 12 months."

Existing Adax customers can use the HDCII-PCIe without making any changes to their current application, as the HDC driver software is the same for all HDCII board formats: PCI/PCI-X, PCI Express and PMC. The HDCII-PCIe board is capable of handling up to 124 Low Speed Signaling Links or four High Speed Links at full line speed, and can perform many thousands of transactions per second while maximising the bus performance and reducing the load on the host processor.

Later this year, Adax also plans to launch a low-profile version of the HDCII-PCIe. This "half-height" board is currently being developed to allow customers to deploy Adax technology within the new low cost, high performance, rack mounted servers in 1U and 2U formats that are becoming increasingly popular in the telecommunications industry.

Further HDCII Technical Specifications

--The HDCII board is dynamically configurable, per port and per channel, and supports multiple protocols including SS7 MTP2 (64k and 2Mbit), SCTP, Frame Relay and X.25 on all 128 channels over four T1/E1 ports.

--The HDCII is specifically designed for wireless, wireline and converging PSTN/IP network platforms.

--The inclusion of up-to two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports makes the board ideal for Signaling Gateways and Media Gateway Controllers.

--The high density of the HDCII and its ability to run large volumes of network traffic make it ideal for narrowband Signaling between 3G SGSN, HLR/VLR and Mobile Switching Centres in the core network.

--The card's high performance with large numbers of small transactions means that it is particularly appropriate for HLRs that need to support ever increasing numbers of subscribers.

About Adax Europe Limited

Adax Europe Limited specialises in telecommunications Signaling infrastructure and migration technologies. The company offers a complete set of solutions for today's converging networks, covering all Signaling protocols and popular hardware formats to provide the right solution for any Signaling requirement.

More information can be found at www.adax.com.