U.S. Department of Defense Certifies Sphere Communications' Sphericall IP PBX; Sphere's JITC PBX1 Certification Allows DoD Organizations to Deploy the Sphericall IP PBX in Mission-Critical Applications.

LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill. -- Sphere Communications announced today that its Sphericall IP PBX has been awarded PBX1 certification by the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), validating Sphericall IP PBX as meeting critical interoperability requirements. The JITC PBX1 certification is required for DoD organizations to deploy Sphericall IP PBX in mission-critical Command and Control environments for use with the Defense Switched Network (DSN).

"The DoD's PBX1 testing is second to none-any organization considering IP PBX deployment should demand this level of validation," announced Chuck Pearson, Chairman and CEO, Sphere Communications. "We also see that our commercial customers gain a great deal of value from these exacting DoD standards."

JITC PBX1 requirements, established by the Defense Information Systems Agency, cover secure PBX operation, with no performance degradation, over multi-vendor data networks. An important requirement of PBX1 certification is Multi-Level Precedence and Preemption (MLPP) which enables higher priority calls to override lower priority calls on an on-demand basis.

"MLPP is equally important in commercial applications", said Todd Landry, Senior Vice President, Sphere Communications. "Many scenarios can be envisioned that require communication resources to be freed up so that emergency calls can be established in commercial locations such as schools or workplaces."

Sphericall IP PBX is an open, software-based solution that runs on multi-vendor networks, scales to 30,000 ports per system, and interoperates with a wide variety of standards-based communications end points. Sphere Communications included products from Aastra Technologies, Allied Telesis and Polycom in its PBX1 certification.

"Sphere's open, standards-based approach ensures that our customers can achieve the lowest total cost of ownership," said Ashok K. Thareja, Chairman and CEO, A&T Systems, Inc., "and because the Sphere system interoperates with legacy voice networks, we see a real opportunity for DoD organizations to migrate to converged IP communications at their own pace, while avoiding continued investment in legacy voice infrastructures."

About Sphere Communications

Sphere Communications is the first to deliver IP PBX technology as a business application for Service Oriented Architecture. A software company, Sphere delivers the most robust IP-based software communications technology available in the marketplace. The Sphericall platform hosts an extremely rich PBX feature set and is proven in deployments that scale to more than 20,000 users. Sphere provides OEMs, ISVs and application developers with the Sphericall Web Services SDK, enabling communications to be easily integrated into business applications and purpose-built communications systems. Founded in 1994, Sphere Communications is headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois and provides its products to a wide variety of customers worldwide. For more information please see the Sphere Communications web site at www.spherecom.com or contact us at 1-888-774-3732.

Sphere and the Sphere logo are registered trademarks and Sphericall is a trademark of Sphere Communications, Inc. All other names are trademarks of their respective companies.