Covergence Joins Forces with Centillium Communications and NETGEAR to Deliver Bullet-Proof Consumer VoIP Security.

MAYNARD, Mass. -- Service Providers Now Have the Resources to Defend Against ''Phone Flu'' and Other Service-Related Attacks Against Subscribers

Covergence, a leading provider of unified security and management solutions for applications and services based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), announced today that it has teamed with Centillium Communications (Nasdaq: CTLM) and NETGEAR(R), Inc., to deliver the industry's first comprehensive consumer and residential VoIP security solution. The three companies will demonstrate the solution for the first time in the Covergence booth (#1136) during the Spring VON Conference and Expo, March 15-17 in San Jose, California.

Although VoIP security has not presented a big problem to date, the landscape is about to change as VoIP usage and SIP deployments move into the mainstream, making the technologies attractive targets. Currently VoIP service provides only basic network-level security functions, leaving both the subscriber and the provider exposed to significant risks. The Covergence, Centillium and NETGEAR solution offers secure consumer VoIP through fully authenticated, validated and encrypted subscriber connections and comprehensive application-level perimeter security to defend the service provider's infrastructure.

"The mass consumer market is now web savvy and it's seeking service providers who can ensure privacy, while avoiding service disruptions, toll fraud and user identity theft," said Bob O'Neil, president and CEO, Covergence. "While these threats and attacks - what we like to call 'phone flu' - have not reached high incident rates, consumers are vulnerable. With the help of Centillium and NETGEAR, we're protecting both the subscriber connection or edge and the service infrastructure, all the while helping VoIP and SIP-based services to reach their full market potential and become as reliable and safe as the PSTN."

With Covergence's Eclipse(TM), NETGEAR's TA622V Broadband Voice Adapter and Centillium's Atlanta(TM) and Palladia(TM) 400 product families, service providers and their subscribers are armed with a bullet-proof security framework that employs the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of signaling or media.

"Leading service providers will need to move quickly to protect their customers' privacy and ensure the reliability and quality of their service through application-level security," said Didier Boivin, vice president of marketing, Centillium Communications. "Our Atlanta and Palladia families built on our award-winning Voice Services Platform (VSP) ensure that service providers have an iron-clad framework that enables the highest quality of service levels for packet-based voice traffic."

"Protecting the residential subscriber edge is critical to VoIP's long-term success - in order for it to truly garner mass market appeal, it must quickly attain the same high standard for security that today's e-commerce applications have achieved," said David James, director of broadband services products, NETGEAR. "Through our partnership with Covergence and Centillium, the broadband subscriber connection is virtually air-tight with encrypted signaling and media, user authentication and validated signaling and media."

About Covergence

Covergence has developed the industry's first unified security and management solution for applications and services based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The Covergence Eclipse (TM) series of solutions provide the security, control, monitoring and interoperability necessary for deployment of real-time applications and services. For more information, visit www.covergence.com.

About Centillium Communications

Centillium Communications, Inc. is a leading innovator of high performance, cost-effective semiconductor solutions that give consumers, enterprises and service providers the winning edge in broadband access. The company's complete, end-to-end system-on-chip solutions accelerate development time-to-market for "last mile" products with Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) and Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies. Centillium products include digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits and related software for DSL and FTTP central office and customer premises equipment and VoIP solutions for carrier- and enterprise-class gateways and consumer telephony. Centillium is a global company with headquarters in Fremont, CA. Additional information is available at www.centillium.com.

Covergence and Covergence Eclipse are registered trademarks of Covergence. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.