Pactolus Raises the Bar for Pure-IP, SIP-Based Audio Conferencing Solutions with the Introduction of New Services and Feature Sets.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Collaborate West 2002

WESTBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 2002

Adds Attended Conferencing to Reservation-less Audio Conferencing 

Product, Introduces Prepaid Conference Calling and Support

for 9 International Languages

Pactolus Communications Software Corporation, a leading provider of SIP-based services solutions for converged networks introduced today an array of new service and feature sets for its pure-IP, SIPware(TM) audio conferencing solutions, giving service providers a next generation audio conferencing platform choice that is much more flexible and cost-effective than currently available, TDM-centric, conference bridge products. These new capabilities include:

Attended Conferencing Capability - This capability allows operators to provide assistance to both the moderator and participants in an audio conference call. Participants can request any type of conference assistance for help with IVR, passcode issues, or any other problems encountered during the call. Moderators can get extensive help from operators, with operators able to take over control of the conference by acting as the moderator and accessing web-based moderator screens for functions such as adding conference participants. Supervisors have real-time access to operator screens for monitoring the operator, supervisor, request, and assignment queues for efficient management of operator resources. Service providers can assign various attributes to operators that designate language usage, service-specific skill levels, or specific locations to insure the appropriate operator resource is applied on an inquiry.

Prepaid Conference Calling Service - A real-time, prepaid conference calling solution that addresses an emerging market for high-value, prepaid conference calling services. This card-based service will notify the conference moderator at the start of the conference of their current account balance, show time remaining to the moderator for the conference call based on currently available balance, and allow them if necessary to recharge an account balance while a conference call is in progress either asynchronously through the phone or through a web-based interface. Service providers have the ability to rate calls using multiple schemes through a sophisticated, integrated real-time rating engine.

Comprehensive International Language Support - The IVR portions of a conferencing service can concurrently support French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean on the same IP conference bridge.

Graphical Prompt Management Facility - The RapidFLEX(TM) Prompt Manager gives service providers the ability to manage prompts associated with their conferencing service through a graphical user interface. Platform administrators can add new prompts using an optional indexing scheme, load prompts on a media server, and play prompts to verify that they have been successfully provisioned.

These new capabilities are added to an already industry leading set of carrier-grade solution features that include support for 96 participant conference calls, robust web-based conference creation and control by the user, full SNMP alarming, full platform redundancy with automatic fail over functionality, an intuitive graphical element management system, a highly flexible pure-IP, SIP-based software architecture, and a Service Creation Environment for creation of IVR-based user interfaces that can be customized to replace existing conferencing services or used to rapidly create new service features. All of these capabilities are available for deployment on either Linux or Solaris-based hardware platforms in conjunction with the high-density Convedia CMS-6000 IP-based media server that can support up to 18,000 G.711 or G.729 conferencing endpoints in a single chassis.

"The breadth of these new features sets again demonstrates the flexibility and speed in developing new services that only a pure-IP voice services architecture can deliver on," said Jeff Gibson, Vice President of Engineering at Pactolus. "The inherent multi-service aspects of the Pactolus solution gives us the ability to rapidly blend service functionality that can result in substantial new revenue streams for service providers."

About Pactolus Products

The Pactolus RapidFLEX(TM) software environment includes an Application Server, Service Creation Environment (SCE), and other components in an open, extensible platform that delivers high value, carrier-ready enhanced services to converged networks. The SIPware(TM) Services suite adds to this a comprehensive set of ready-to-deploy services including prepaid and post paid versions of conference calling and calling card, both reservation-less and attended conference calling, interactive voice response applications, 800 number services, and voice mail.

About Pactolus Communications Software

Pactolus Communications Software Corporation, (www.pactolus.com) is the leading provider of SIP-based enhanced service solutions for converged network infrastructure. The company is the first to bring sophisticated, third-party call control capabilities to SIP-based networks. The SIPware Services suite, enable service providers to deliver multiple, advanced voice applications that are versatile and scalable in a single platform environment. Pactolus is a venture funded, privately held company headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts.