Cisco Announces New Voice Packet Gateway Solution; Offers High-Quality, Reliable Voice; Communication Costs Reduced by Up to 50 Percent.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 1997--Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced the first in a series of products aimed at the voice-over-IP and fax-over-IP markets.

The new voice module for the Cisco 3600 series routers enables enterprises to integrate voice, fax and data across existing data infrastructures while significantly reducing recurring communications costs. Customers who will benefit from the attractive economics of IP-based voice solutions include companies that use a mix of WAN technologies such as Frame Relay, leased lines and ISDN and companies that intend to extend voice capabilities to desktop applications.

Reduced Communications Costs through Toll Bypass

With Cisco's new voice-over-IP solution, an enterprise can offload branch-office voice traffic from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and route it across the company's existing data intranet, thereby lowering voice telephony costs by eliminating toll charges. In addition, interoffice fax traffic can be routed across the company's data network or through an extranet, using existing fax machines.

Cisco voice modules interface with existing telephones, fax machines, key systems and PBXs, making the process of placing calls over the IP network transparent to users.

New Opportunities for Service Providers

"In addition to the new applications that voice over IP can offer an enterprise, one of the most compelling reasons to turn to Cisco's voice-over-IP solution is the return on investment," said Jeff Pulver, president of pulver.com, a leading Internet telephony analyst research firm.

"A company with communications between two locations with ten people each calling for two hours per day can pay off the total equipment purchase in four to five months. Following this, the monthly savings could be up to 50 percent." Pulver continued, "In addition to the cost savings, the technology also represents a future way in which enterprises will be using their data networks for the converged services of voice, video and data."

Cisco's leadership in supporting time-sensitive data traffic such as SNA enables service providers to offer differentiated services. Cisco is now extending that leadership to include service opportunities in voice/data integration.

The Cisco 3600 series is often deployed as customer premises equipment (CPE) or customer leased equipment (CLE) by service providers. The multifunction capability of the Cisco 3600 series enables a variety of managed services applications, such as extranet fax.

Voice Quality

The quality of voice service is a product of the voice compression technology used and the total end-to-end latency. The voice processing latency is minimized by Cisco's integrated, router-based design and the industry-leading quality of service (QoS) features of Cisco IOS(TM) software, such as Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) and Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), provide the least possible network latency.

The dedicated DSP architecture provides processing power for voice compression, echo cancellation, silence suppression and jitter buffer management without burdening the router. The voice coder-decoder (CODEC) is capable of compressing standard 64K pulsecode modulation (PCM) voice down to 8K.

"Having tried various IP-based voice implementations, we were impressed by the clarity of heavily compressed CS-ACELP voice in Cisco's solution," said Petri Helenius, chief technical officer, Santa Monica Software in Finland.

Product Description

Based on market-leading technology, each standards-based voice module supports two or four voice channels through a variety of voice interface cards. The voice modules support several toll-quality compression schemes including G.711 for high-bit rate applications and G.729 for WAN applications.

The Cisco 3600 family of routers has WAN modules that support Integrated Services Digital network (ISDN) Basic Rate Interface and Primary Rate Interface (BRI and PRI), high-speed serial, channelized T1, E1, integrated digital modems and many others.

LAN modules are available that support Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Token Ring. The Cisco 3600 series router is ideally suited to retail, banking and corporate infrastructures because it fully supports all Cisco IOS routing protocols.

Cisco IOS Software Voice Framework

Cisco has developed a framework within Cisco IOS software that provides for the complete and seamless integration of voice, data and call control. The framework provides support for standards such as H.323 for interoperability with third-party telephony software.

The H.323 specification approved by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) provides standards interoperability among vendors in the telephony and multimedia markets. H.323 clients such as Microsoft's NetMeeting and Selsius' Ethernet Phone have been tested and work with the new Cisco voice modules.

In early 1998, Cisco will announce larger-scale, higher-density digital voice packet gateways on a carrier-class platform. These packet gateways will be targeted at corporate aggregation for voice-over-IP traffic and will enable Internet telephony service providers to offer residential and business-class services for Internet telephony.

Pricing and Availability

The voice modules for the Cisco 3600 series will be available before the end of the year. U.S. list prices for the voice modules start at $625 per port. Concurrent with this announcement, Cisco is offering an aggressive new program for trading up to the Cisco 3600 series. Further details can be obtained from local Cisco sales offices.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at http://www.cisco.com . -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: Cisco IOS is a trademark, and Cisco, Cisco Systems and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

The voice network module on the Cisco 3600 will support up to two voice interface cards. These voice interface cards come in three different types and each voice interface card has two ports. Each type provides a slightly different interface for connecting to different types of equipment.

The FXO (Foreign Exchange Office) interface is a connector that allows an analog connection to be directed at the CO of the PSTN. This interface is of value for off-premise extension applications. This is the only voice interface card that will be approved to connect to off-premise lines. This interface may be used to provide backup over the PSTN or for Centrex-type operations. Since this VIC will need to be approved by local PTTs it will not be available in every country at release.

The FXS (Foreign Exchange Station) interface is a connector that allows connection for normal residential phones, fax machines, keysets and PBXs, and provides ring voltage, dial tone, etc. This will be used where phones are connecting directly to the router.

The E&M ("Ear and Mouth") interface is a connector that allows connection for PBX trunk lines (tielines). It is a signaling technique for two- and four-wire telephone and trunk interfaces. This will be a very popular interface for PBX extension-type applications.

The most popular interface in the branch offices will probably be FXS, followed by E&M, then FXO.

CONTACT: Cisco Systems, Inc.

Clare Whitecross, 408/525-2957

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