Brix Networks Introduces VoIP Assessment Offering.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2003

New 24x7 Pre-Deployment Evaluation Service Qualifies Enterprise

Networks For IP Telephony Across All Sites Prior To Actual Operation

Brix Networks (www.brixnet.com), the trusted provider of real-time service assurance solutions for real-time networks, today introduced its new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Assessment offering, a 24x7 pre-deployment evaluation service for enterprise information technology (IT) professionals that predicts how well their networks will support IP telephony across all of their offices and locations prior to actual operation.

VoIP is a technology that allows users to make telephone calls over IP data networks. It promises lower operation and management costs than traditional circuit-switched telephone networks because it allows organizations to route voice calls over their existing data networks.

However, in addition to demanding very high performance, VoIP is more susceptible to normal IP network effects like delay and loss than data traffic, and poses a challenge to network administrators looking to implement converged data and voice networks.

With the Brix VoIP Assessment, Brix deploys performance-monitoring appliances, called Brix Verifiers, at specified enterprise locations. These appliances simulate voice calls between sites, collect the resulting performance statistics, and then transmit the statistics back to the BrixWorx(TM) server for additional analysis. The Brix Verifiers collect all of the most important quality-impacting and diagnostic results from each voice call, including round-trip latency, discarded and lost packets, jitter, and Brix MOS(TM), a real-time measure of overall call quality.

The BrixWorx server is hosted by Brix Networks, meaning there is no software for IT managers to install, administer, and then remove at the conclusion of the evaluation.

When the assessment period ends, Brix VoIP performance experts produce a customized Assessment Summary Report containing key findings that identify hot spots, problem locations, and impairments that vary by day, or even hour of the day. In addition, the Brix VoIP Assessment Report will make specific technical recommendations, such as optimized phone jitter buffer sizes, for the subsequent VoIP rollout phase.

In historic Lexington, Mass., a community located 11 miles northwest of Boston with approximately 30,000 residents, Brix recently conducted a weeklong VoIP Assessment involving six sites, including the town hall, police headquarters, public library, high school, an elementary school, and the operations center of the department of public works.

"The Brix VoIP Assessment was an extremely comprehensive evaluation requiring no resources on our part, and provided us with invaluable specific information about our network," said Connie Rawson, MIS coordinator for the Town of Lexington. "We are now using the findings and subsequent recommendations to help guide us as to our next steps."

According to prominent VoIP researcher Ed Mier, president of independent testing facility MierLabs Inc. of Monroe Township, New Jersey, and author of comparative VoIP management product test articles, "After extensive testing, we found that the Brix System provides an automated VoIP voice quality assessment that yields results which are remarkably consistent with human ratings of real VoIP calls."

"Before investing in a large-scale VoIP deployment, or even in a small trial, IT managers need to know how well their existing network will handle the additional quality-sensitive voice traffic," said Jamie Warter, vice president of marketing and business development at Brix Networks. "VoIP places new, real-time demands on network infrastructures, and today's typical management tools are unable to provide managers with the critical information they really need. The cost-effective Brix VoIP Assessment arms network administrators with the objective data required beforehand as they consider making a move to VoIP."

Availability and Pricing

The Brix VoIP Assessment is available immediately at an introductory U.S. list price of $5,000.

About Brix Networks

Founded in July 1999, Brix Networks develops and markets real-time service assurance and performance management solutions that verify the quality of advanced, IP-based services, such as VoIP, VPNs, Web-hosted business applications, and streaming media. The Chelmsford, Mass.-based company's seamlessly integrated hardware and software offerings allow carriers, service providers, large enterprises, and government agencies to build, operate, and assure their IP networks, applications, and services by providing proactive, end-to-end, service level management (SLM) and service level agreement (SLA) verification. Additional information about Brix Networks can be found on the company's Web site at www.brixnet.com, and by calling 978-367-5600, or 1-888-BRIXNET.

Brix, Brix Networks, the Brix Networks logo, BrixWorx, BrixMOS, and Brixnet are trademarks of Brix Networks, Inc. All other company or product names mentioned may be trademarks of their respective holders.