N.E.T. Adds New PrimeVoice Products for Even Greater Bandwidth Utilization and Lower Cost Networking.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 16, 1997--N.E.T. today announced three enhancements to its PrimeVoice(TM) family of products. The new products include 8 kbit/s toll-quality voice compression, a new six-port card for locations with smaller traffic requirements, and an ISDN Basic Rate Interface module for the N.E.T.(TM) Promina(TM) 800 Series Family of multiservice access platforms. These new products help network service providers and enterprises increase efficiencies and reduce costs for multiservice traffic on wide area networks (WANs).

"For carriers and network service providers, transmission quality and class-of-service capabilities are the highest priorities and the new PrimeVoice capabilities help network providers gain maximum flexibility and cost-efficiencies," said Kieran Taylor, broadband consultant, TeleChoice. "This particular solution provides a high level of voice quality combined with transport of voiceband data in an efficient manner."

The new PrimeVoice Plus firmware enhancement to the PrimeVoice compression module provides standards-based 8 kbit/s toll-quality voice transmission resulting in up to eight times as many high quality voice calls over a single 64 kbit/s circuit. The 8 kbit/s toll-quality compression rate is achieved through the implementation of the ITU-recommended G.729 standard for CS-ACELP (Conjugate-Structure Algebraic-Code-Excited Linear Prediction). The PrimeVoice Plus firmware also supports voiceband data traffic up to 9.6 kbit/s automatically without additional overhead. It is also compatible with the original PrimeVoice compression capabilities offering G.728 standards-based 16 kbit/s toll quality compression as well as 8 kbit/s, 9.6 kbit/s and 4.8 kbit/s compression capabilities.

When PrimeVoice compression modules are combined with PrimeVoice ISDN switching services, variable rate compression options allow network managers to select four different compression rates on a call-by-call basis according to the origination or destination of the call. All of this traffic can be combined with video, frame relay, and LAN internetworking traffic, on the N.E.T. Promina multiservice access platform to create extremely cost-effective, reliable networks. PrimeVoice Plus voice traffic is maintained at the toll-quality 8 Kbit/s level without the contention issues associated with other transmission media, which were primarily designed to carry data traffic. Up to 240 calls can be supported on a single trunk, so network managers can provision modules according to growth needs and purchase only the capacity required at the time.

"The PrimeVoice product family has been well-received by carriers and large enterprises as a catalyst to create an entirely new framework for pricing voice over the wide area," said Sam Ezekiel, senior vice president, Marketing, N.E.T. "We are extremely pleased to add new features and products to the PrimeVoice portfolio and we expect to continue to broaden the offerings and capabilities in the future."

The PrimeVoice compression module family is now being expanded to offer a six-channel configuration for locations with smaller traffic requirements. The new six-channel module joins the 12- and 24-channel configurations that are currently available. The new PrimeVoice Plus 8 kbit/s toll-quality voice compression is available for all three configurations.

A new ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI) module is being introduced for the new Promina 800 Series family of multiservice access platforms for support of switched-ISDN services. This integrated access feature is ideally suited to applications requiring real-time connectivity to network services on an intermittent basis. The four-port BRI module features Class-of-Service capabilities, and is designed for voice, video and LAN-to-LAN connectivity applications being offered by competitive access providers. The BRI module complements the existing Primary Rate Interface (PRI) module used in many enterprise applications to provide connectivity to devices such as routers, PBXs and desktop videoconferencing equipment. As a result, the Promina 800 Series family offers a complete ISDN switching solution for cost-effective voice and data connections.

The PrimeVoice Plus 8 kbit/s toll quality module will be available in September in six-, 12- or 24-channel configurations carrying customer list prices of $8,800, $14,025, and $28,050 respectively. Current PrimeVoice customers can upgrade their modules for $800, $1,275, and $2,550 for the six-, 12- or 24-channel configurations respectively. The new six-channel module with the original PrimeVoice capability will be available in August and carries a customer list price of $8,000. The new BRI module will be available in August and carries a customer list price of $5,000. These feature modules are also compatible with N.E.T. IDNX(R) multiservice platforms running on Release 13 or higher.

The N.E.T. Promina 800 Series family of multiservice access platforms feature integrated access capabilities required by carriers, network service providers, competitive access providers and large enterprises. The WAN platforms provide access to ATM services from a multiservice environment featuring one of the richest interface sets for voice, data, legacy and LAN traffic. The Promina Series combines ATM access, intelligent call-routing, advanced compression capabilities, frame relay and ISDN switching and network management for a complete networking solution.

N.E.T., headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., is a leading worldwide supplier of multiservice wide area networks used by enterprises, government organizations and carriers in more than 50 countries. N.E.T. multiservice WANs and ATM products integrate voice, data, and video traffic with ATM, frame relay, LAN internetworking and ISDN capabilities for today's mission-critical applications. The company is certified to the worldwide ISO 9001 standard for design, manufacturing and servicing. Join us at our worldwide web site: http://www.net.com for further information. -0-

Note to Editors: N.E.T., Promina, and PrimeVoice are trademarks, and IDNX and the N.E.T. logo are registered trademarks of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc.

CONTACT: N.E.T.

Lloyd Green, 415/780-5096