Avaya Adds New IP Capabilities to Its MultiPoint Conferencing Unit, Enabling Lower Network Costs --Customers Offered Free Upgrades, Lower Prices.

Business/Technology Editors

BASKING RIDGE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 24, 2000

Avaya, the former Enterprise Networks Group that will be spun off from Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) later this year, today announced new networking capabilities -- including Voice over IP (VoIP) -- for its MultiPoint Conferencing Unit (MCU) that will allow businesses to lower their network costs for multi-location conferences. In addition, customers of the latest MCU are being offered 20 to 40 percent price reductions and free upgrades for one year to future releases.

Release 7.0 of the MCU now supports the H. 323 audio protocol transmitting Voice over IP networks and continues to support the International Telecommunications Union H.320 standard for video, data and audio conferencing. Businesses can utilize their existing LAN bandwidth, reducing transmission costs for these IP audio add-on participants. The MCU is also IP video-ready and will be able to support H.323 video protocol capabilities. Customers with the Release 7.0's new VoIP capabilities will need only to make a simple software upgrade when it becomes available.

The latest release now provides support for ISDN-BRI Trunk Interface, supporting BRI (Basic Rate Interface) from a local exchange carrier (LEC) that provides an alternate and more economical connection than ISDN-PRI.

Avaya's MCU offers one of the most flexible conferencing solutions in the industry and consists of two complementary systems. The Conference Reservation and Control System (CRCS) automates the reservation process and conference control on the MCU. With its enhanced Web Pak capabilities, users can now gain access to conferencing information such as scheduling and room reservations via a corporate intranet - including online reservation requests and monitoring of conferences. The CRCS ResCenter gives a user the ability to schedule and reserve conference ports in advance for up to 10 MCUs.

Through the MCU's Universal Conference Control (UCC), via a touch-tone phone or web-browser, the end user can change the screen composition of a conference, mute sites, drop sites, and perform a roll call. Additionally, transition from full-screen, voice-activated switching to Panoramic View and to traditional Continuous Presence Plus screen composition can be performed through the UCC. The MCU can support up to 16 images on the screen at one time. Release 7.0 features SpeedMatching, which allows customers with different network transfer rates, and different audio or video formats, to participate in a single conference.

Release 7.0 of the MCU is generally available now in the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific, Caribbean Latin America regions, and Canada. The Avaya MCU is available in three models. The CX model is targeted for simple, video, audio and data conferencing up to 12 ports. The DX model provides general video, audio and data conferencing up to 64 ports, and the EX model is the full-featured system offering up to 96 ports.

All of the award-winning Avaya MCU models are based on the same highly reliable telecommunications equipment as the DEFINITY(R) Enterprise Communications Server. The price starts at $19,950. Purchasers of Release 7.0 are being offered free software and hardware upgrades for one year after installation.

For more information about the MCU Release 7.0, customers may call 1-800-242-2121, prompt 3 and then prompt 6 or go to www.lucent.com/conferencing. Avaya offers a full suite of services for monitoring and setting up conferences.

About Avaya

Avaya, formerly the Enterprise Networks Group of Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., USA, is a leading provider of communications systems for enterprises. Including businesses, government agencies and other organizations. Avaya offers voice, converged voice and data, customer relationship management, messaging, multi-service networking and structured cabling products and services. Avaya is a worldwide leader in sales of messaging and structured cabling systems and a U.S. leader in sales of enterprise voice communications and call center systems. Avaya intends to use its leadership positions in enterprise communications systems and software, its broad portfolio of products and services and strategic alliances with other technology and consulting services leaders to offer its customers comprehensive eBusiness solutions. For more information about Avaya, visit its Web site at http://www.avaya.com.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as broadband and mobile Internet infrastructure; communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at http://www.lucent.com.