Excel Switching Announces New ONE Architecturetm Products; New Products Confirm Commitment to Open, Programmable Standards.LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 1999--Excel Switching Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :XLSW XLSW Excel Switching (former stock symbol; now delisted) ), a leading provider of open switching platforms for telecom networks worldwide, today unveiled new products and features at CT Expo that enhance the open design of its EXS EXS Expandable Switching System (Lucent) EXS Executed Schedule Expandable Switching (EXS) System. As part of the company's ONE Architecture strategy, Excel continues to roll out new products and upgrades to existing products that expand the open design, programmability and capabilities of the EXS. Collectively, the new products and product enhancements provide capabilities that will help carriers and developers bring cost-effective services to market faster and with greater flexibility and functionality. The following are major enhancements offered with Excel's new system software, Release 5.4. -- Greater Service Differentiation with EXS Call Control EXS Call Control is a programming environment based on Excel's patented PPL PPL - Polymorphic Programming Language. An interactive, extensible language, based on APL, from Harvard University. ["Some Features of PPL - A Polymorphic Programming Language", T.A. Standish, SIGPLAN Notices 4(8) (Aug 1969)]. technology, which supports custom call models running on the switch, enabling developers to quickly implement new competitive services. This release introduces the capability to expand routing and resource tables and provides the ability to modify routing information without interrupting service. The advantage to the developer and/or carrier is the ability to build custom routing tables and modify routing without disrupting service. -- Improved Cost-Effectiveness with Product Licensing Through a new capability called software keying, customers can now expand their switching capacity to a more granular level. It enables carriers to deploy only the resources that are needed today, while ensuring that capacity can be expanded, cost-effectively, as business grows. Line cards can now be configured for as few as two T1 or E1 spans, and expanded in increments of two spans, for up to 16 spans/card. Similarly, SS7 cards can be configured to support two links, and expanded by two for a full complement of up to 16 links per SS7 card. Customers can also select SS7 software modularly, configuring the user parts that are needed today, while additional software modules can be added as requirements evolve. -- Advances in Functionality with SS7 Enhancements Excel announces major new capabilities with its SS7 product family. First, Excel is announcing SS7 SCCP/TCAP. This release provides connectionless services (Class 0 and Class 1) and supports redundancy. It allows developers to rapidly implement Intelligent Network (IN) services, as well as mobile/cellular network applications. SCCP/TCAP allows the Excel switch to operate as a Service Switching Point In telephony, a Service Switching Point (SSP) is the telephone exchange that initially responds, when a telephone caller dials a number, by sending a query to a central database called a Service Control Point (SCP) so that the call can be handled. (SSP (1) (Service Switching Point) The local exchange node in an SS7 telephone network. The SSP can be part of the voice switch or in a separate computer connected to it. ) or Intelligent Peripheral (IP) in the SS7 network. Enhancements to Excel SS7 ISUP (ISDN User Part) See SS7. add increased support for signaling and call control messages. Excel SS7 also now supports MTP (1) (Message Transfer Part) See SS7. (2) (Media Transfer Protocol) A Microsoft enhancement to the picture transfer protocol (PTP), starting with Windows Media Player 10 in Windows XP. Statistics for monitoring and measurement The Monitoring and Measurement (MOME) initiative is a coordinating action within the 6th framework of the European Commission. It is aiming at fostering knowledge on Internet monitoring tools and exchange of information about Internet data traces. functions as specified in the ITU (International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, Switzerland, www.itu.ch) A telecommunications standards body that is under the auspices of the United Nations. Comprising more than 185 member countries, the ITU sets standards for global telecom networks. Q.752 specification, enabling network operators to monitor the performance of network resources, traffic and link status and evaluate the impact of changes on the network. -- Lawful Intercept Support With Release 5.4, Excel is supporting Lawful Intercept that provides generic multi-channel control, enabling Lawfully Authorized Electronic Intercept (LAES LAES Latin American Economic System LAES Lawfully Authorized Electronic Surveillance LAES Landing Aids Experiment Station LAES Low Altitude ELINT System LAES Landing Aids Experimental System ) and providing dynamic voice monitoring support for LAES. -- Improved Service and System Efficiency with TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) A lightweight version of the FTP protocol that has no directory browsing or password capability. Employing UDP rather than TCP for transport, TFTP is typically used to transfer firmware upgrades to network equipment such as Trivial File Transfer Protocol (networking) Trivial File Transfer Protocol - (TFTP) A simple file transfer protocol used for down-loading boot code to diskless workstations. TFTP is defined in RFC 1350. (TFTP) is being implemented in Excel's software procedures, enabling the EXS system software to be partitioned and downloaded incrementally. This capability improves the timing required for downloads, allows incremental downloads to take place without interrupting service, and makes more efficient use of switch memory capacity. Release 5.4 also supports a number of enhancements to the system software platform, primarily to provide increased functionality, reliability and reporting. In addition to Release 5.4 enhancements, Excel is announcing enhancements to two of its ONE Architecture products, representing the continued rollout of the company's commitment to open programmability. -- Integrated Media and Switching Resources with EXNET Connect As part of ONE Architecture's continued rollout program, Excel is announcing EXNET Connect ISA/SCBus capability. EXNET Connect enables the interconnection of PC-based media and voice resources directly into the switching fabric, providing high performance integrated media and switching services, and freeing ports for revenue-generating network connections. EXNET Connect ISA/SCBus uses EXS Call Control, Excel's open API Open API (often referred to as OpenAPI) is a word used to describe sets of technologies that enable websites to interact with each other by using SOAP, Javascript any other web technology. and patented PPL to bring open programmability to media resources. -- SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) A widely used network monitoring and control protocol. Data are passed from SNMP agents, which are hardware and/or software processes reporting activity in each network device (hub, router, bridge, etc. Support with EXS SwitchKit 3.0 Excel's EXS SwitchKit provides a rich OA&M facility that can support multiple services, resources and networks on a single switching platform, providing a management environment that is adaptable to any EXS configuration. It contains a robust developer toolkit that expedites and simplifies application programming, speeding time to market and providing a consistent management interface to the network operator. EXS SwitchKit 3.0 now supports an SNMP interface, so carriers can interface their Excel-based services to their other SNMP-managed operations, resulting in a single, consistent, system-wide management function. EXS SwitchKit 3.0 supports a Management Information Block (MIB (1) (Management Information Base) The hierarchical database used by the simple network management protocol (SNMP) to describe the particular device being monitored. MIB objects are identified using ASN.1 syntax. See SNMP, RMON, OID and ASN.1. ) and an SNMP Extension Agent, to support this industry standard. "These product enhancements extend the capacity, configurability and openness of Excel's ONE Architecture product family, and are intended to enable service providers to bring new, distinctive services to market more cost-effectively," said Robert Madonna, president and chief executive officer of Excel Switching Corp. "This release marks another milestone in a promise that was made with our announcement of ONE Architecture last March, when we said that Excel would continue to promote an open approach to switching for the telecom industry." Availability and Demonstration All of these products are available for first office application (FOA FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement (NIH) FOA First of All FOA Friends of Animals FOA Futures and Options Association FOA Fiber Optic Association FOA Form of Authorization FOA Försvarets Forskningsanstalt ) as of March 8, 1999. Excel's ONE Architecture products will be exhibited in Excel's booth #1500 at the Computer Telephony Exposition in Los Angeles from March 2-5. In addition, Excel will demonstrate a recently announced product, EXS Services (see "Excel Announces Product Enhancements for its Open Programmable Switching Platform at CTIA (1) See CompTIA. (2) (Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, Washington, DC, www.ctia.org, www.wow-com.com) A membership organization founded in 1984 that is involved with regulatory and public affairs issues in the wireless industry. '99, Feb. 8, 1999"). EXS Services builds upon EXS Signaling, an open protocol layer, and EXS Call Control, an open call control and resource management layer. The demonstration will illustrate how EXS Services enables carriers and developers to offer custom telecom services quickly and cost-effectively while reducing time to market and increasing revenues. About ONE Architecture ONE Architecture defines Excel's strategic technology framework for its state-of-the-art Expandable Switching System (EXS). It enables carriers and developers to integrate network routing, enhanced services and media support on a single, highly-scalable switching platform. With its product and services, Excel provides a scalable network solution regardless of legacy signaling protocols, switching capacity, or billing and subscriber services offered from the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) The worldwide voice telephone network. Once only an analog system, the heart of most telephone networks today is all digital. In the U.S. (Public Switch Telephone Network) switch. About Excel Switching Corporation Excel Switching Corporation is a leading provider of open switching platforms for telecommunications networks worldwide. Excel develops, manufactures, markets and supports a family of open, programmable, carrier-class switches that address the complex enhanced services and wireless and wireline infrastructure needs of network providers. Excel's products are currently deployed in telecommunications networks in 60 countries throughout the world. Visit Excel's website at http://www.xl.com. This release may contain statements which are "forward looking," and is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ significantly from expectations. Factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, those relating to potential acquisitions, dependence on and concentration of relationships with application developers, original equipment manufacturers and systems integrators; length of sales cycle; risk of new product introductions; dependence on proprietary rights; and other risks identified in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings including those risks identified in the section entitled "Risk Factors" of the Company's Annual Report for the year ended December 27, 1997 on Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. , as amended. Product and service names used within this release are trademarks, registered trademarks and service marks of their respective owners. |
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